While economists have extensively studied gender norms affecting women, masculinity norms – the informal rules that guide and constrain the behaviours of boys and men – remain underexplored. This column reviews how such norms can shape economic outcomes in labour markets, health, education, households, and politics. Drawing on new survey data from 87,000 individuals across […]
Workers often remain in their jobs even when they know they may get higher wages elsewhere, raising questions about the effectiveness of pay transparency laws. This column draws on a large German survey to examine how information frictions shape labour market outcomes. The findings suggest that workers are better informed than many policymakers assume, but […]
The most economically prosperous and gender-equal societies often display stronger gender segregation in educational choices – a pattern known as the ‘gender equality paradox’. This column explores this paradox using data on half a million children in 37 Western countries and 10,000 British families over two decades. The findings suggest that gender segregation in education […]
For years, the World Bank Group’s systems for measuring results operated in parallel tracks: corporate Scorecards that monitored performance through outcome-level targets, and impact evaluations that investigated what works, for whom, and why. Both were powerful in their own right—but too often disconnected. That is beginning to change. In today’s context of tighter budgets, more […]
France has narrowed its gender lifetime earnings gap, but has not managed closed it. Despite legal guarantees, French women still earn 30% less than men over a career. This column tracks lifetime income for cohorts born 1942–1964 and finds that convergence has stalled since the 1980s, mostly due to rising part-time work among women. Working […]
