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Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?

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  • Suanna Oh

Abstract

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 forego large payments to avoid job offers that conflict with their caste identity, regardless of whether these decisions are made in private.

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  • Suanna Oh, 2021. "Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9487, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9487
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    Cited by:

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    2. Cassan,Guilhem & Keniston,Daniel & Kleineberg,Tatjana Karina, 2021. "A Division of Laborers : Identity and Efficiency in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9544, The World Bank.
    3. Asad, Sher Afghan & Banerjee, Ritwik & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2023. "Do workers discriminate against their out-group employers? Evidence from an online platform economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 221-242.
    4. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Stefanie Stantcheva & Johannes Wohlfart, 2024. "Measuring What Is Top of Mind," CEBI working paper series 24-10, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    5. Baysan, Ceren & Dar, Manzoor H. & Emerick, Kyle & Li, Zhimin & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2024. "The agricultural wage gap within rural villages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    6. Biswajit Banerjee & Risto Herrala, 2024. "Testing the impact of liquidation speed on leverage using Indian data," Working Papers 113, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    7. Enzo Brox & Riccardo Di Francesco, 2024. "The Cost of Coming Out," Papers 2403.03649, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    8. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Duncan, Denvil & Li, Danyang, 2024. "The (in)visible hand: Do workers discriminate against employers?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    9. Lane, Tom, 2024. "The strategic use of social identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 355-368.
    10. Qinyou Hu, 2024. "Social status and marriage markets: Evaluating a Hukou policy in China," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 477-509, June.
    11. Florian H. Schneider & Fanny Brun & Roberto A. Weber, 2024. "Sorting and wage premiums in immoral work," CEBI working paper series 24-12, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    12. Paula Onuchic, 2022. "Recent Contributions to Theories of Discrimination," Papers 2205.05994, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    13. Cullen, Claire & Joshi, Sarthak & Vecci, Joseph & Talbot-Jones, Julia, 2024. "Female Empowerment and Male Backlash: Experimental Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 17450, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Lorenz Götte & Egon Tripodi, 2022. "Social Recognition: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donors," CESifo Working Paper Series 9719, CESifo.
    15. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Vincenzo Lombardo & Tiziana Venittelli, 2023. "Social identity and labor market outcomes of immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 69-113, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    identity; labor supply; caste; occupational choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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