Rubina Hundal (Gursmeep)

Rubina Hundal (Gursmeep)

Research

Job Market Papers

Smile Inequality: Appearance, Perceived Productivity, and Labor Market Access

I study how a visible but remediable sign of poverty, dental appearance, affects early hiring decisions in India’s service sector. While low income is usually linked to lower skills, poverty also constrains how people present themselves, shaping perceived confidence, diligence, and trustworthiness. Using two experiments that replicate the first screening stage of hiring, I show that oral appearance creates a new channel of labor market inequality. In a randomized headshot experiment, visibly poor teeth reduce perceived confidence and predicted wages by about 9%. In a large incentivized resume-rating experiment with hiring professionals, the same “bad-teeth” photo lowers the 0–10 hire score by 0.18 points, which is about two-thirds of the effect of removing a skill certificate. The penalty is largest in customer-facing roles and attenuates when I control for employers’ incentivized forecasts of customer and coworker reactions, showing that discrimination partly reflects anticipated third-party responses rather than productivity beliefs. I formalize a simple screening model in which appearance signals shift perceived productivity and social comfort. Together, these findings reveal that fixable health conditions tied to poverty can restrict access to better jobs, suggesting that mobility policies should complement education and training with affordable health and appearance interventions. [Draft coming soon]

Learning About Work: Evidence from a Randomized Internship Program in Urban India (with Emma Zhang)

We evaluate a randomized internship program by offering 80-hour workplace placements to high-school students from low-income public schools in urban India. The experiment tests whether brief labor-market exposure updates beliefs about employment and returns to education. Using linked student–parent surveys and an incentivized willingness-to-pay exercise, we find that interns value career information about 8% more than controls and recalibrate expected earnings and job-search durations, with larger belief revisions among girls. Educational aspirations remain high for both groups, but treated students form more realistic expectations about the transition from school to work. The results show that even short, low-cost exposure to real workplaces can shift expectations and bridge the gap between aspiration and informed labor-market choice. [Draft coming soon]

Work in Progress

Language of Violence: Persistence of Origin-Based Social Norms Among Migrant Couples (with Naira Kalra and Oyebola Okunogbe)

We examine how social norms embedded in place of origin shape intimate partner violence (IPV) among migrant couples in India. Using a novel classification of internal migrants based on mother tongue and language belts in the National Family Health Survey, we link historical IPV rates in origin regions to current experiences of migrant wives. A one percentage point increase in IPV prevalence at origin predicts a 0.4 percentage point rise in current IPV, even after rich controls and fixed effects. Mechanism analyses show that intergenerational beliefs, especially wives’ acceptance of wife-beating formed from parental exposure, mediate the persistence of these norms. The results highlight the stickiness of cultural norms across migration and underscore how deeply rooted origin-based norms continue to shape household violence despite new social and institutional environments. Working paper

Sibling Socialization and the Formation of Labor-Force Norms in India (with Emma Zhang)

We study how sibling gender composition shapes labor market aspirations and job application behavior among low-income youth in India. Using data from public school alumni, we find that girls with older sisters are significantly more likely to apply for jobs, while those with older brothers apply less. These patterns persist even when controlling for parental expectations and socioeconomic background. Same-sex siblings appear to act as role models, whereas opposite-sex siblings reinforce traditional norms. The next phase, a large scale randomized trial with 5,000 students, is testing at scale whether structured information and social-learning interventions can recalibrate these norms within households. Preliminary results

Saving with Stocks: Should We Promote Opportunities for Gains or Assuage Worries Around Loss? (with Emma Zhang)

We explore how framing and gender interact in financial risk-taking in the US. Two experiments, one measuring preferences over gains and losses under ambiguity, and another randomizing a group-chat intervention, reveal that men and women differ not in preferences over gains but in aversion to losses. Traders exhibit higher sensitivity to gains than non-traders, while messages emphasizing loss avoidance increase willingness to invest among new investors. A larger follow-up will test whether “loss reassurance” or “gain celebration” framings are more effective at promoting stock market participation. Results

Projects in Development

Aspirations and Inaction Among High-School Students in India (with Rajdev Brar)

We are piloting a randomized field experiment in government schools to study how students make high-stakes education choices at the end of Grade 10. The project tests whether encouraging students to actively search for admissions information, rather than passively receiving it, helps them understand available options and choose academic streams that align better with their own aspirations.

Visa Vows: Migration, Marriage, and Cultural Remittances in India (with Mridul Joshi)

This project asks how female educational migration from Panjab, India to Canada changes marriage-market behavior in sending communities. We combine a lab-in-the-field partner-choice task in IELTS centers with an online audit of matrimonial profiles, randomly varying migration and dowry signals to trace how cross-border mobility reshapes preferences and social status cues.

Does Entrepreneurship Curriculum Create Firm Growth or Perpetuate Microenterprises? (with Emma Zhang)

We study whether school-based entrepreneurship training helps youth move into productive employment or mainly reproduces small self-employment. In Gujarat, we partner with public schools and local firms that recruit from vocational streams, randomizing whether firms see students’ vocational credentials when evaluating applicants to measure the value of these programs in early labor-market entry.

Pre-PhD Research