Female Flourishing and the Economic Frontier

Women’s economic flourishing is not only an equity concern: growing evidence shows significant efficiency gains from women entering male-dominated fields and collaborating with male colleagues. However, there is little work on the process through which these gains towards the efficient frontier can be realized, and how the benefits can be shared by all. This proposal, comprised of 7 projects, will shed light on how to spur inter-gender collaboration and trust, through 3 distinct channels: 1) Interpersonal skills, 2) Community-based career paths and role models and 3) Institutional support and protection. On interpersonal skills, I will study the long-term effects of negotiation skills training on professional and educational outcomes for women in Zambia, as well as partner with the Italian Ministry of Education to research how these skills enable collaboration in middle school coding clubs. On community career paths, I will collaborate with the Zambian Ministries of Education and Health to investigate whether professionalized community health workers inspire girls in rural areas to pursue further education and enter male dominated fields. On institutional support, I will work with the Small Claims Court in Zambia to research whether contract-enforcing institutions spur collaboration between male and female entrepreneurs and improve business outcomes. This proposal makes four novel contributions to the literature. First, it focuses on how to resolve frictions in inter-gender collaboration beyond the household, to create economic gains while protecting the more vulnerable partner. Second, it exploits novel panel data and RCT interventions to study long-term impacts of empowerment interventions. Third, it looks at how interventions affect welfare outcomes and expand the economic frontier by measuring spillovers on men, communities, and marketplaces. Fourth, it explores collaboration throughout a woman’s life-cycle, comparing returns of early and later investment.