What is the effect of female role models on the labour force participation of women

Abstract

This thesis investigates the relationship between female role models, attitudes towards working women and labour force participation, using individual data from the ISSP database. The findings reveal that female role models have a large impact on attitudes towards working women and labour force participation. A working mother explains the largest share of the effect of female role models. The effect of other role models is small and/or in the opposite direction. Another finding is that positive attitudes only have a positive effect on labour force participation for women who are currently working. Besides increasing the chance of participating in the labour force, positive attitudes also increase the weekly hours worked. Finally, the direct effect of role models on labour force participation is negative, which is unexpected