Do Gender-of-Interviewer Effects Differ Across Immigrant Generations? Survey Evidence from Italy

Abstract

Interviewer gender has been shown to affect responses to survey questions on gender attitudes and norms, but does its influence vary across groups with different migration backgrounds? I study this question using the Between Origin and Destination (BOnD) survey, conducted in Lombardy, Italy, between 2024 and 2025. Consistent with gender-of-interviewer effects, a type of social desirability bias, female interviewers elicit more progressive responses on a summary index of gender norms and on an index of the acceptability of homosexuality, abortion, divorce, casual sex, and premarital sex. The effect is concentrated among natives and second-generation individuals; first-generation immigrants show little response to interviewer gender. One possible explanation is that social desirability pressure from a female interviewer operates through host-country social norms: Individuals more embedded in the Italian normative context are more responsive to cues from a female interviewer. These findings have implications for the design of surveys administered to mixed native-immigrant populations.