Norms Lab

A man and a woman start their careers in the same organisation. They have similar qualifications, similar potential, and the same ambition to succeed. Ten years later, their career projections look very different. What happened in between?

Career progression is often explained through performance, and qualification, but women face social expectations that shape how they are supported and rewarded. From assumptions about marriage and pregnancy at the hiring gate to unequal access to sponsorship, visibility and career opportunities once they are recruited.

And for women who do reach senior leadership, success can come with its own set of expectations.

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele sits with Toyin Seth-Ogungbemi, People & Culture Systems Builder and Partner, Human Resources at Poiema Consult, to explore how social norms shape women's leadership and earning power.

The conversation explores:

• How assumptions about marriage, pregnancy, and commitment influence how female professionals are appraised

• Why women may receive less sponsorship, visibility, and opportunities than men in professional workplaces

• Whether these unwritten rules are reinforced by employers, families, or wider social expectations

• What organisations can change through policy, leadership, and workplace culture

The question is not only whether women have the expertise to lead. It is whether the social norms around them allow that expertise to truly count.
#NormsLabPodcast #GenderNorms #WomenInLeadership #WomenAtWork #SocialNorms #Nigeria #BehaviourChange

When life gets heavy, why can it feel easier to say “I’m fine” and turn to drugs than to say “I need help”?

For many young people, pressure from work, school, family, and expectations to “be strong” can leave little room to admit that they’re struggling.

So when a friend offers something to “take the edge off”, saying yes can feel easier than asking for help.

But what makes asking for help so difficult in the first place?

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele sits with Dr Adekunle Adesina and Donald Chukwuma to explore the link between mental health, drug use, and help-seeking among young people.

They unpack how pressure and social expectations shape the way young people cope, why drugs can become an easier option than talking about distress, and what it would take to make asking for help feel normal and safe.

▶️ Watch on YouTube: LINK

#NormsLabPodcast #MentalHealth #DrugUse #SocialNorms #YouthMentalHealth #Nigeria

A woman was seriously ill with malaria and needed to get to a health facility. She didn’t have the money to pay for care, nor did she have her husband’s consent to seek clinical help.

When a community health worker called her husband, he asked:

“Who gave you permission to take my wife to the health facility?”

It sounds extreme. But what if the same expectations are shaping how families prevent, respond to and treat malaria?

Who decides when malaria is serious enough to seek care? Who controls the money for malaria treatment? Who gets to use the mosquito net when there isn’t enough for everyone in the household? And what happens when a woman is expected to put her family’s health before her own?

These decisions are shaped by social and gender norms around authority, money, caregiving and what families consider normal. Even if it’s “just malaria,” these norms can influence how urgently families seek care and treatment.

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele sits with Dr. Ayebatari Lawson and Stella Ikebueze to explore malaria through a social norms lens, looking at how household expectations and power shape prevention, care-seeking and treatment.

The conversation explores:

* Why owning a mosquito net does not always mean everyone in the household gets protected against malaria

* How household decision-making and control over money affect malaria prevention and care

* Why “it’s just malaria” can influence when people seek treatment

* And what malaria programmes can do differently when they take these norms seriously

Getting nets, medicines and health services to people is only part of the story. What happens inside the household can determine whether they are actually used.

#NormsLabPodcast #Malaria #SocialNorms #GenderNorms #Nigeria #BehaviourChange

When a girl is sent from her village to the city, the arrangement often arrives through someone trusted, an auntie, a grandmother, a neighbour who knows a family in Lagos. Her parents say “Nagode, Allah”, thank you, God and try to believe that school, safety and a better life are waiting on the other end of the journey.

But for many girls, that hope quietly rearranges itself. She wakes before everyone and sleeps after everyone. 

School becomes “soon”, then “later”, then nothing at all. And when she asks why, she’s told be grateful for the roof over her head.

Because this happens within families, it is rarely called harm. It is called help, assistance, or care.

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele sits with Masturah Baba to unpack a practice woven so deeply into Nigerian household life that most of us grew up alongside it without naming what we were seeing.

The conversation moves through:

• Why families agree to these arrangements and what they are really being promised

• How the promise of education becomes a pathway into full time labour

• Why girls often remain silent, and why the adults around them hesitate to intervene

• What agency looks like for a girl living inside someone else’s home

• What prevention, accountability, and real care look like in practice

Help can become harm when it hardens into a norm we stop questioning. This is a conversation about seeing clearly, before another girl boards another bus.

🎧 Watch on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/mzg-nLrzZv8

3 million Nigerian children begin their vaccination journey every year. Many don’t finish it. Most of the dropouts happens at the 9-month mark, right when the measles vaccine is due.

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele sits with public health researchers Ernest Ezeogu and Mary Kuforiji to explore why children and crucially, what’s already working to change it. 

This isn’t a conversation about mothers who don’t care. It’s about a mother who trekked kilometres under the sun, only to be told the vaccine was out of stock. A mother who had to lie to her husband to vaccinate her own child. And a community where husbands started riding their wives to the clinic and everything changed.

 In this episode, we explore:

• Why the 6-month gap between the 14-week and 9-month vaccines is where children fall through the cracks

• How caregiving norms, household authority, and “let peace reign” culture shape who gets vaccinated

• What happened when vaccines were brought to places of worship

• How mothers who served as peer researchers became change-makers

Immunization dropout is not a parenting failure. It’s a systems and norms challenge, and the people closest to the problem are already designing the solutions.

ttps://youtu.be/40m8rxltJAI

Nigeria’s new Basic Education Curriculum now requires every student to graduate with at least one practical or trade-related skill, a significant step toward expanding learning pathways and economic opportunity for students across the country.

As this reform takes root, one important question emerges: when girls choose a skill, what shapes how free that choice really feels, especially when it goes against social expectations?

In many Nigerian schools:

- Some skills quietly feel “appropriate” for girls

- Others are seen astoo masculine or out of place

- Parents, teachers, and unspoken social norms shape decisions before a girl even speaks.

In this episode of The Norms Lab Podcast, Anjola Ayodele speaks with educationist and Safe Schools expert Blessing Tarfa Mam about:

- What this curriculum reform is working to achieve

- How gender norms shape students’ realities inside classrooms

- What it would actually take for skills education to expand agency for girls

- What gives Blessing hope that things are changing.

Join us as we reimagine what the freedom of choice truly means amongst gender-biased social norms, as the new education curriculum is implemented.

#GenderAndEducation #NormsLabPodcast #educationreform #gendernorms #socialnorms #UBEC #NewEducationCurriculum #nigeria #NigerianSchools #nigerianstudents #education

When most Nigerians fall sick, their first stop isn’t the clinic, it’s the chemist, a neighbour, or a home remedy. It feels normal, even responsible. But this “normal” comes with serious consequences.In 2021 alone, over 50,000 Nigerians died directly from drug resistance, and 47% of adults self-medicated with antibiotics without prescriptions. Behind these numbers are invisible forces, social norms that shape how we make health decisions:

• “Everyone I know goes to the chemist first.”
• “My family expects me to try herbs before going to the clinic.”
• “PHCs don’t have drugs, so I’d rather ask my neighbour or pastor.”

This episode dives deep into how these norms influence trust, delay care, and endanger lives, and how communities can rewrite these habits to make safe choices the normal ones.Join the conversation to learn practical ways we can all shift harmful norms for better health outcomes.🎧 Listen to Episode 23 now: “Norms & Health-Seeking Behaviour.”Let’s challenge the habits that put our health at risk, and rebuild trust in our health system, one conversation at a time.

In collaboration with Sustaining Action for Gender Equality (SAGE), we partnered with Policy Innovation Centre for a fireside chat session at the Gender Inclusion Summit, 2025.Dr. Raihanah Ibrahim (SCIDaR) led the conversation, urging institutions to go beyond just awareness and design systems that actually create space for women. Through the SAGE program, SCIDaR is showing how practical changes like mentorship, childcare support, board parity, and flexible policies can create the kind of environments that foster real change.Dorothy Njemanze of (DNF) reminded everyone that equity conversations must be rooted in the lived experiences of women, especially those who’ve survived gender-based violence. Also, Tola Sunmonu-Balogun (McKinsey & Company) spoke about the barriers women face in health systems due to social norms and institutional biases. This discourse proves that gender-intentional programming isn’t optional—it’s the equity model for sustainable impact. Changing social norms takes time, but with empathy, leadership commitment, and survivor-centered systems, we can reshape the future for good.Relive the experience here.#SocialNorms #PIC #PolicyInnovation #PolicyInnovationCentre #Gender #GenderEquity #GIS #GS25 #GenderandInclusionSummit #GenderandInclusionSummit2025 #SNALC #SAGE #SCIDaR #Norms #FaithLeaders #Entertainment

How do we shift the norms shaping Nigeria’s future?

In collaboration with Sustaining Action for Gender Equality (SAGE), we partnered with Policy Innovation Centre for a webinar which was a build up to the Gender Inclusion Summit, 2025.

From television and digital media to pulpits, mosques, and community gatherings, storytellers and spiritual leaders remain central in shaping what is possible and permissible in society.

This conversation, themed “Influencing Norms, Inspiring Change: The Role of Entertainers and Faith Leaders”, brought together thought leaders to explore one of the most critical levers for change: the voices that shape everyday life.

Join us in reliving the experience.

🎙 What does it really take to shift harmful social norms in

Nigeria?

In this episode of Norms Lab, we explore how trusted faith leaders, cultural champions, and entertainment media are helping reimagine gender, power, and identity in Nigerian communities. Join Anjola Ayodele in conversation with: Haishat Olufadi-Ahmed, public health expert and lead researcher; and Oluwafunmilayo Raheem, social norms strategist. Together, we break down findings from a deep dive on interventions like MTV Shuga