Female labor market conditions and gender gaps in aspirations
利用日本全国纵向调查数据，研究发现当地女性就业率越高，青少年在教育、婚姻和生育方面的抱负性别差距越小，且父母对女孩的教育投资相对增加。
Aspirations for the future can influence investments made today, and gender gaps in aspirations can perpetuate gender gaps in outcomes. In this paper, we explore how the local labor market affects gender gaps in aspirations. Using a national longitudinal survey from Japan, we begin by documenting large gender differences in adolescents’ aspirations with respect to education, marriage, and fertility, as well as parental aspirations for their child’s education. We then show that these gender gaps – specifically, boys aiming for higher educational attainment as well as later marriage and fertility – are significantly smaller in municipalities with higher female employment. Consistent with this, we also find that female employment is associated with higher parental investments in girls relative to boys. We detect similar patterns when examining realized outcomes at age 19.