TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Molina, Teresa
AU  - Usui, Emiko
        TI  - Female Labor Market Opportunities  and Gender Gaps in Aspirations
        PY  - 2022/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15453
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15453
        AB  - Aspirations and plans for the future can influence investments made today. Gender gaps in these views can perpetuate gender gaps in outcomes. In this paper, we explore how gender gaps in aspirations and expectations are affected by the local labor market. Using a national longitudinal survey from Japan, we begin by documenting large gender differences in adolescents’ own thoughts about their future educational attainment, occupation, marriage, and fertility, as well as parental aspirations for their child’s future. We then show that these gender gaps – specifically, boys planning for higher educational attainment as well as later marriage and fertility – are significantly smaller in municipalities with higher female labor force participation. Consistent with this, we also find that female labor force participation increases parental investments in girls relative to boys. We detect similar patterns when examining realized outcomes at age 19.
        KW  - aspirations
KW  - gender differences
KW  - female employment
        ER  -