Stock markets and female participation in the labor force

This paper examines the relation between female participation in the labor force and stock market trading volume. We focus on the first teaching day of the year at kindergartens and primary schools, treating it as an event with characteristics that resemble an exogenous event, and verify this using a web-based survey. We find that the first day of school has lower trading volume than the average daily trading volume during the rest of the year. Moreover, we document that female workforce participation is negatively associated with the trading volume on this day and that, in societies that have legislated gender nondiscrimination laws that govern hiring, this negative effect is even more pronounced. Our main findings document a significant societal phenomenon with a profound effect on stock markets, and specifically on the quality of the information environment, and therefore merit further attention.