The College Melting Pot: Peers, Culture and Women's Job Search

Abstract: Gender norms are widely recognized as key determinants of persistent gender gaps in the labor market. However, our understanding of the drivers of gender norms, and their implications for preferences, remain lacking. This paper addresses this gap by examining how cultural assimilation from college peers influences women's early-career labor market decisions. For identification of causal effects, I exploit cross-cohort idiosyncratic variation in peers' geographical origins within Master's programs, combined with unique administrative and survey data covering the universe of college students in Italy. The main finding is that exposure to female classmates originating from areas with more egalitarian gender culture significantly increases women's labor supply, primarily through increased uptake of full-time jobs. A one standard deviation increase in peers' culture increases female earnings by 3.7%. The estimated peer effects are economically significant, representing more than a third of the gender earnings gap. Drawing on comprehensive data on students' job search preferences and newly collected data on their beliefs, I shed novel light on two distinct mechanisms driving peer influence: (1) shifts in preferences for non-pecuniary job attributes, and (2) social learning, particularly on the characteristics of the job offer distribution.