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Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?

  • Suanna Oh
American Economic Review
vol. 113, no. 8, August 2023
(pp. 2055-83)
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Abstract

How does identity influence economic behavior in the labor market? I investigate this question in rural India, focusing on the effect of caste identity on job-specific labor supply. In a field experiment, laborers choose whether to take up various job offers, which differ in associations with specific castes. Workers are less willing to accept offers that are linked to castes other than their own, especially when those castes rank lower in the social hierarchy. Workers forgo large payments to avoid job offers that conflict with their caste identity, even when these decisions are made in private.

Citation

Oh, Suanna. 2023. "Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?" American Economic Review, 113 (8): 2055-83. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211826

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C93 Field Experiments
  • D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
  • J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
  • J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification