What's up with gender norms? S Anukriti May 20, 2026 This page in: English © 2026 The World Bank Group,

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/what-s-up-with-gender-norms- Ask a man in Saudi Arabia whether he supports his wife working outside the home, and he likely says yes. Ask him to estimate how many of his neighbors agree, and he will likely guess that most do not. In one widely-cited study, 87% of young married men privately approved of women working outside the home but the average respondent estimated that only 63% of his peers did. When researchers told a random subset of these men what the others actually believed, the wives of those men became more likely to have applied and interviewed for jobs outside the home. © 2026 The World Bank Group,