Abstract. This paper combines personnel records of the U.S. government with census data to study how exposure to  female representation at work can persistently reduce  intergenerational gender gaps in labor market outcomes. Exploiting city-by-department variation in the sudden expansion of female  employment during World War I, we find that daughters of civil servants exposed to female co-workers are more likely to work later in life. This  effect extends beyond public sector employment and clerical work, reducing the earnings gap by 12%. Consistent with a broader shift in attitudes toward working women, exposure to female co-workers also made male civil servants more likely to marry working women. We also show that cities exposed to larger increases in female federal workers  saw persistently higher female labor force participation in both the public and the private sector.  Increasing gender representation within the public sector can thus have broader labor market implications.