Workshop and Seminar Led by Ilian Dinas and Biljana Meiske from the European University Institute

12 05 2025

The Centre of Excellence in Social Sciences invites you to attend a seminar and workshop led by Ilian Dinas and Biljana Meiske from the European University Institute.

The Interdisciplinary Seminar in Empirical Social Science will take place on Wednesday, May 21, from 1:15 PM to 2:15 PM. The title of the presentation is: “Mating Market Competition and Gender Norms.”

We invite you to attend in person at the Old Library of the University of Warsaw / Main Campus / Room 308 (3rd floor, Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28). Please note that the seminar will not be streamed online. No registration is required. The seminar will be held in English.

Seminar description:

We study norms regulating socially acceptable female behavior and how between-group competition in the mating market shapes their development. We focus on a case study featuring an inflow of ethnic Greek refugees arriving from Turkey following the Greco-Turkish conflict in the early 20th century and examine how the composition of the incoming refugee population influenced local gender norms. We leverage the fact that many male refugees were captured or executed before emigrating, resulting in a female-skewed refugee population, thereby triggering a competition shock in the mating market. At the time, prevailing norms stigmatized women living outside male-headed households, making female refugees vulnerable to stereotypes of low moral standards. For a sufficient level of competition, an individual from the local population has an incentive to double down on conservative gender norms as a means of undermining the reputation of the newcomer competitors, even if this does not align with their true preferences. Specifically, individuals invested in the mating prospects of local women—whether for themselves or their families—benefitted from emphasizing female ‘purity’ as a valued trait, as doing so amplified their comparative advantage over the morally stigmatized competition. We hypothesize that this, in turn, led to an increased value placed on conservative values signaled by female behavior. To study this idea, we exploit the variation in the gender composition of refugees in each locality as a proxy for the intensity of competition relying on the as-good-as-random allocation of refugees across Northen Greece. We combine data from multiple censuses; marriage registries; and a fine-tailored survey to test our proposed mechanism against competing explanations for the observed patterns.

The workshop titled “Cultural Transmission” will take place on Thursday, May 22, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, in Room 1.110 (1st floor) at the Faculty of Modern Languages, Dobra 55.

Please note that registration for the workshop is mandatory. The number of places is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

The registration form is available until May 18 at:
https://forms.gle/xL2Z2STGjVXydPdF9

Given the limited number of spots, we kindly ask you to carefully consider your decision before registering. If you are unable to attend after registering, we would greatly appreciate being informed as soon as possible so that your place may be offered to someone else.

Workshop description:

Culture—understood as the set of beliefs, norms, and preferences shaped through human interaction and transmitted across generations—has been shown to influence behavior beyond the effects of institutions or genes alone. This short-term workshop explores the mechanisms of cultural transmission, the conditions that sustain cultural continuity, and the forces that drive cultural change. We will examine both vertical and horizontal pathways of transmission, with particular attention to the role of social norms in maintaining or shifting cultural patterns. The workshop draws on examples from sociology, political science, and economics to illustrate how cultural change unfolds in diverse settings.

Bio:

Elias Dinas holds the Swiss Chair in Federalism, Democracy and International Governance. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute (2010) and his research interests include the dynamics of political socialization, the downstream effects of institutional interventions and the legacy of authoritarian rule on the ideological predispositions of citizens in new democracies. He has also a keen interest in research methodology. His work has been published, among others, in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis and mentioned in The Economist, the Atlantic and the New York Times.