Who You Gonna Call? Gender Inequality in External Demands for Parental Involvement *

Abstract

Gender imbalance in time spent on child rearing causes gender inequalities in labor market outcomes, human capital accumulation, and economic mobility. We investigate a novel source of this inequality: external demands for parental involvement. We pair a theoretical model with a large-scale field experiment with a near-universe of US schools. Schools receive an email from a two-parent household with a general inquiry and are asked to call one of the parents back. Mothers are 1.4 times more likely than fathers to be contacted. We decompose this inequality into discrimination stemming from differential beliefs about parents' responsiveness versus other factors, including gender norms and link it to the gender earnings gap and other labor market outcomes. Our findings underscore a process through which agents outside the household contribute to withinhousehold gender inequalities.

Keywords: Discrimination, Gender Gap, Field Experiment

JEL Classification: J16, J71, C93, J22