Social networks, gender norms and women's labour supply: Experimental evidence using a job search platform

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Using a cluster randomized control trial, we study the role of women's social networks in improving female labour force participation. In the first treatment arm, a hyper-local digital job search platform service was offered to a randomly selected group of married couples (non-network treatment) in low-income neighbourhoods of Delhi, India. In the second treatment arm, the service was offered to married couples and the wife's social network (network treatment), to disentangle the network effect. Neither couples nor their networks were offered the service in the control group. Approximately one year after the intervention, we find no significant impact in wives' likelihood of working in the network treatment group relative to the control group. Instead, we find a significant improvement in their husbands' labour market outcomes, including likelihood of working, work hours and monthly earnings. In contrast, home-based self-employment increased among wives in the network treatment group. We argue that our findings can be explained by the gendered structure of social networks in our setting, that reinforces (conservative) social norms about women's (outside) work.