Studying the Family and Gender With Survey Experiments

ABSTRACT Experimental research has become increasingly popular in the social sciences, with survey experiments driving much of this growth (Mize and Manago 2022; Schachter and Weisshaar 2024). These experiments are appealing because they enable researchers to establish causality with confidence. Random assignment ensures that the only difference between groups is exposure to a treatment. Survey experiments, a subset of experimental methods, randomly assign respondents to varied survey versions, enabling the manipulation of characteristics like gender or social class to draw causal inferences about their effects on perceptions or evaluations. This approach has gained traction in family studies because experiments are particularly suited to exploring family norms and perceptions. This review examines how survey experiments have shaped family research, focusing on three areas: the decline of traditional family norms in Western contexts, the role of gender in perceptions of family roles, and how families respond to various constraints on family life.