CREATE Open Seminar - How the World Responds to Men and Women Falling Behind

We report findings from a global study on how people respond to males and females falling behind in the labor market and education, conducted in 62 countries with more than 66,000 participants. We examine both support for policies targeting individuals who struggle and beliefs about whether people fall behind due to low effort. The paper provides three main findings. First, at the global level, there is significantly greater support for policies targeting females falling behind than for males. Second, people are more likely to attribute falling behind to lack of effort when it concerns males rather than females, and these effort beliefs are systematically related to differences in support for government intervention. Third, we document substantial cross-country variation in how effort beliefs relate to support, with markedly different patterns in OECD and non-OECD countries, as well as differences in how male-female framing effects in beliefs vary with gender inequality. These findings provide new evidence on how societies perceive and respond to falling behind, and how gendered beliefs and country context shape policy preferences.