Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Farzana Afridi Author-Name-First: Farzana Author-Name-Last: Afridi Author-Email: fafridi@isid.ac.in Author-Workplace-Name: Indian Statistical Institute and IZA Author-Name: Abhishek Arora Author-Name-First: Abhishek Author-Name-Last: Arora Author-Email: abhishekarora@fas.harvard.edu Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard University Author-Name: Diva Dhar Author-Name-First: Diva Author-Name-Last: Dhar Author-Email: diva.dhar@bsg.ox.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University of Oxford Author-Name: Kanika Mahajan Author-Name-First: Kanika Author-Name-Last: Mahajan Author-Email: kanika.mahajan@ashoka.edu.in Author-Workplace-Name: Ashoka University Title: Women’s Work, Social Norms and the Marriage Market∗ Abstract: While it is well-acknowledged that the gendered division of labor within marriage adversely affects women’s allocation of time to market work, there is less evidence on how extant social norms can influence women’s work choices pre-marriage. We conduct an experiment on an online marriage market platform that allows us to measure preferences of individuals in partner selection in India. We find that employed women are 14.5% less likely to receive interest from male suitors relative to women who are not working. In addition, women employed in ‘masculine’ occupations are 3.2% less likely to elicit interest from suitors relative to those in ‘feminine’ occupations. Our results highlight the strong effect of gender norms and patriarchy on marital preferences, especially for men hailing from higher castes and northern India, where communities have more traditional gender norms. These findings suggest that expectations regarding returns in the marriage market may influence women’s labor market participation and the nature of market work. length: 67 Creation-Date: 20230214 Revision-Date: Publication-Status: File-URL: https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper94_0.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 94 Keywords: Gender Keywords: India Keywords: Social norms Keywords: Work choices Keywords: Marriage market Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:94