Cultural Norms and Neighborhood Exposure

Abstract

This work investigates the interaction between cultural norms and neighborhood characteristics, in the context of the gender gap in math. Using high‐quality Swedish administrative data, I estimate the effect of mothers’ country‐of‐origin gender norms on the gender gap in math among second‐generation immigrant siblings and exploit a refugee placement policy to obtain random variation in regional characteristics. I find that the sibling gender gap in math increases with cultural gender norms, such that girls with mothers from more gender‐traditional cultures perform worse compared to their brothers, but that local labor market gender equality can completely mitigate this cultural norm effect.