Educated to Be Mothers? Indoctrination and Demographic Backlash

Educated to Be Mothers? Indoctrination and Demographic Backlash

Matteo Sandi (Cattolica University)

You may follow the seminar at the following link.

ABSTRACT:

Social norms are an important determinant of fertility decisions. We show that public policy designed to stimulate fertility by stressing gender roles can generate a backlash among treated women. We study the introduction of Franco's 1945 reform of primary education, which promoted traditional gender roles and nationalist-religious values. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to education under the Franco regime to define a series of difference-in-differences specifications. Our results show that women exposed to this reform experienced a significant reduction in their fertility rates in subsequent decades when they reached the fertile age. They also display beliefs that appear in antithesis with the regime’s promoted gender roles and family values, highlighting the unintended backlash that autocratic regimes and gender stereotypes can generate.

BIO:

Matteo Sandi is an Assistant Professor in Economics (RTDB) at the Cattolica University of Milan and a CEP (LSE) Visiting Fellow. Matteo has been a Research Economist at the CEP (LSE) from 2015- 2022. His current research focuses on the determinants of crime and the crime-reducing effects of schooling, policing and early childhood interventions, as well as on the use of discipline sanctions in school and their impact on student performance and criminal activity. As part of this research agenda, Matteo is leading the LSE’s Education Policy and Youth Crime in England (EPYCE) project.