Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16740
Authors: ngel Cuevas; Ruben Cuevas; Klaus Desmet; Ignacio Ortuno
Abstract: This paper uses information on the frequency of 45,397 Facebook interests to study how the difference in preferences between men and women changes with a country's degree of gender equality. For preference dimensions that are systematically biased toward the same gender across the globe, differences between men and women are larger in more gender-equal countries. In contrast, for preference dimensions with a gender bias that varies across countries, the opposite holds. This finding takes an important step toward reconciling evolutionary psychology and social role theory as they relate to gender.
Keywords: gender gap; preferences; gender equality; evolutionary psychology; social role theory; gender-related preferences; non-gender-related preferences; Facebook interests; cross-country differences
JEL Codes: D01; D10; D90; D91; J16; O57; Z1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| differences in preferences between genders (J16) | gender equality (J16) |
| gender equality (J16) | gender gap in preferences for gender-related interests (J16) |
| gender equality (J16) | differences in preferences for non-gender-related interests (J16) |
| gender equality (J16) | larger differences in gender-related interests (J16) |
| gender equality (J16) | smaller differences in non-gender-related interests (J16) |