Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin's Ethnic Deportations.

This article investigates horizontal between-group cultural transmission of gender norms using Stalin’s ethnic deportations during World War II as a natural experiment. Over two million Soviet citizens, primarily Germans (Protestants) and Chechens (Muslims), were forcibly relocated to eastern parts of the USSR, exposing native populations to groups with contrasting gender norms. The study finds that local native populations in deportation destinations with a higher presence of Protestant deportees exhibit greater gender equality in labor force participation, business leadership, fertility rates, and pro-gender-equality attitudes compared to those exposed to Muslim deportees. These effects persist after controlling for pre-deportation characteristics, vertical transmission to deportee descendants, economic development, sector composition, and selective migration, suggesting that gender norms diffused horizontally through imitation and learning, especially between culturally closer groups and where adopting such norms was less costly.