Role Model and Gender Equality: Evidence from Peace Corps in Senegal

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries II, African Politics & Middle East and North Africa Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: African Politics

Abstract

Can female American volunteers be role models for African female youth? Recent findings from many fields in social science suggest that exposure to gender role models can raise aspiration for higher education and career and promote political participation by changing one's belief in self-efficacy and breaking gender stereotypes. In contrast, others envision conditional effects depending on the degree of similarities between the role model and its audience implying no such effect due to lack of relevance of role models. I draw on the sustained social contact of African youth with Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in Senegal to answer the proposed research question. Anecdotal evidence suggests that volunteers living with African youth for two years tend to inspire them and help them break stereotypes. To test my hypothesis, I exploit the quasi-random assignment of the same-gender PCVs to youth in their host families to study a battery of psychological, educational and social outcomes. This is the first study in social science to examine the impact of role models across radically different cultural background and among few studies investigating the cultural impact of foreign aid.

Author

• Dongil Lee, New York University