normschores

Code for the NormsChores project: a structural household model of gender norms and the division of market work, chores and leisure, with simulated-minimum-distance estimation tools.

The Python package lives in src/normschores/:

Requirements

Windows only. The model is solved in C++ which is compiled on first use with Microsoft Visual Studio (2019/2022 Community is found automatically; for other editions set COMPILER_PATH in the notebooks, or pass ChormsClass(..., compiler_path="<VS>/VC/Auxiliary/Build/")). The compiled model_cpp.dll is written to the current working directory. Python 3.12 or newer.

Running the notebooks from the published package

Create a fresh virtual environment, install the package with the notebooks extra (adds ipykernel and papermill) and copy the model code and notebooks to a working folder with normschores-copy.

The notebooks import the model code from the folder above them (from Chorms import *, from estimate.moments import ..., import exhibits), not from the installed normschores. A copy is therefore self-contained: edits to its Chorms.py, estimate/, exhibits.py and cppfuncs/*.cpp are what its notebooks use. The notebooks write their results (saved/, output/figures/, output/tables/, model_cpp.dll) into the copy's notebooks/ folder.

With uv:

uv venv --python 3.12 .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
uv pip install "normschores[notebooks]"
normschores-copy my_run      # copies the code and notebooks to .\my_run

or with plain pip:

py -3.12 -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install "normschores[notebooks]"
normschores-copy my_run

Then open the notebooks in my_run\notebooks with .venv\Scripts\python.exe as the kernel (in VS Code: Select Kernel → Python Environments; for a browser, also pip install jupyterlab) and run _ Run all notebooks.ipynb, or the notebooks one at a time in numbered order. normschores-copy refuses to write into a folder that is not empty unless --force is given.

After editing C++ files, set DO_COMPILE = True (and restart the kernel) so model_cpp.dll is rebuilt; otherwise an existing dll in the notebook folder is reused. Python edits are picked up by the notebooks' %autoreload, or after a kernel restart.

The model can also be used directly:

from normschores import ChormsClass

model = ChormsClass(name="baseline")
model.link_to_cpp()   # compiles cppfuncs/model_cpp.cpp shipped with the package

Development setup (repository)

In the repository the notebooks are edited and run in place in src/normschores/notebooks/. Their results (saved/, output/) are kept next to them but are not included in the built package. The paper reads the figures and tables from there (\codefigs/\codetabs in _main.tex).

Move to the code directory and run:

Option A — uv

uv sync

This creates .venv, installs normschores in editable mode (so changes in src/ are picked up directly) and the notebook tools (ipykernel, papermill) from the dev dependency group.

Activate the environment:

# Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate

# Linux / macOS
source .venv/bin/activate

For Jupyter notebooks in VS Code, the kernel is located at .venv\Scripts\python.exe.

Option B — pip + venv

python -m venv .venv

# Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate
# Linux / macOS
source .venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt

Option C — Anaconda / conda

conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate normschores

Releasing

Builds use uv (uv build, with the uv_build backend). Publishing is done by the GitHub Actions workflow .github/workflows/publish.yml (in the repository root).

To publish a new version to PyPI:

uv version --bump patch      # or minor / major; updates pyproject.toml and uv.lock
git commit -am "Release v$(uv version --short)"
git tag "v$(uv version --short)"
git push && git push --tags

Pushing a v* tag runs the workflow, which builds the package and uploads it to PyPI with trusted publishing (no API token stored in GitHub).

One-time setup on PyPI: under Your projects → Publishing add a pending trusted publisher with owner ThomasHJorgensen, repository NormsChores, workflow publish.yml and environment pypi. Also create an environment named pypi in the GitHub repository settings.

Appendix: Maintaining dependency files

Updating requirements.txt

requirements.txt is generated by uv from pyproject.toml. After adding or upgrading packages in pyproject.toml, regenerate it with:

uv lock
uv export --no-hashes -o requirements.txt