SESSION #5 - Family Compatibility of High-Income Careers and Girl’s Career Aspirations

This session presents evidence from a field experiment in Uzbekistan showing that addressing work-family compatibility in dual-income households raises girls' STEM aspirations and enrollment, and explores how these findings inform policy design, particularly for female talent pipeline programs in male-dominated sectors.

Recording will be available soon

Key takeaways

• Information alone is not enough—narrative framing matters. Showing girls data on STEM wages and career paths did not shift aspirations. Change only occurred when the same information was paired with evidence that high-income careers can be compatible with family life—delivered through couples working in the same field and openly discussing household responsibilities.
• The intervention reshapes the social environment, not just individual preferences. Girls updated their expectations about future spousal support, and boys became significantly more likely to believe working wives benefit the whole household. Behavioral outcomes followed: more STEM course sign-ups, more interest in STEM universities, higher likelihood of staying in school.
• Effects were largest where norms left some room. Girls whose families rarely discussed career choices were most responsive. Those already embedded in highly traditional environments were harder to reach—a reminder that information-based interventions can shift aspirations where norms leave space, but cannot substitute for deeper norm change.
• Gender parity imposed from above does not survive without addressing underlying norms. Soviet-era evidence shows women's participation in male-dominated sectors collapsed once external demand pressures receded, because social norms had never been genuinely addressed. Sustainable inclusion requires working on norms where they form, not just managing labor supply at the point of entry.
• The female talent pipeline must be built upstream. Downstream interventions—internships, fellowships, workplace programs—only reach women who have already self-selected into technical fields. Reaching secondary school girls before aspirations solidify requires cross-sector collaboration between education and technical sector teams.
• Shifting aspirations without addressing structural barriers risks raising expectations that cannot be met. Outreach campaigns need to be tailored to local norm nuance, and parallel investment in childcare, safe infrastructure, and conducive workplaces must advance alongside. Administrative changes can make existing systems work better, but transferability depends on context.