Webinar Summary: Sociocultural norms and executive function are powerful factors in an individual’s agency, decision-making, and development. Gender norms, for example, mediate the relationship between economic development and women’s labor market outcomes. Executive functions make it possible for a person to live, work, and learn. They are important for taking simple to complex actions, from cooking, shopping, nurturing children, planning, and to execution. Low executive functions can frustrate the success of anti-poverty and empowerment programs through participants’ inadequate planning, improper utilization of resources, and the lack of timely actions. In developing countries, among the fundamental obstacles to poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment are gender norms and women’s low executive functions. In this talk, Prof. Rahman will describe a women’s anti-poverty program in India and present evidence on its causal effects on gender norms and women’s executive function. The policy implications of the findings for anti-poverty programs and women’s empowerment will also be discussed.
