The Gendered Impacts of Employment

Last registered on March 13, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Gendered Impacts of Employment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011056
Initial registration date
March 07, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 13, 2023, 9:01 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
UC Berkeley

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Harvard Business School
PI Affiliation
Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-01-23
End date
2023-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
What is the relationship between employment and gender identity? We study this question in the context of the Rohingya refugee camps, the largest refugee camps in the world, and a setting in which pervasive unemployment and strong gender norms mark daily refugee experience. We involve 2520 individuals in a field experiment with four arms: a control arm, a weekly cash arm, and an employment
arm of equal value, and a volunteering arm. We explore how each of these interventions ultimately affects psycho-social wellbeing through their impacts on individuals' engagement of self (self worth, purpose), engagement with their partner (intra-household decision making, bargaining and intimate partner violence), and engagement with the outside world (sociability). By disentangling the key components of employment into receiving an income, performing a productive activity, and receiving an income for performing a productive activity, we are able to map the various dimensions of employment to distinct policy interventions, each with potentially distinct returns for males and females in our context.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hussam, Reshmaan, Erin Kelley and Gregory Lane. 2023. "The Gendered Impacts of Employment." AEA RCT Registry. March 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11056-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our experiment implements three interventions. Relative to a control arm, in which individuals receive a nominal fee for weekly survey participation, we design an employment arm, in which we offer gainful employment in the form of surveying tasks for an average of four days per week for six weeks; a cash arm, in which we offer no work but the equivalent sum of money in the form of weekly cash transfers; and a volunteer arm, in which we offer an equivalent but unpaid work opportunity and a nominal fee for weekly survey participation. A comparison of the work arm to the control arm yields the value of employment in its entirety. A comparison of the work arm to the cash arm yields a causal estimate of the non-pecuniary value of employment. A comparison of the work arm to the volunteer arm enables a distinction between the psychosocial value of fulfilling the role of the ‘breadwinner’ of a family (working and earning for work) to that of the experience of working without earning. We enroll 2520 married couples into the experiment. While we offer a randomized treatment to only one member (male or female) of each couple, we survey both members, allowing us to document spillovers of each intervention on the spouses of treated individuals.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2023-02-01
Intervention End Date
2023-06-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We collect measures of psychosocial wellbeing, which our PAP describes in more detail. We organize the underlying channels navigating this relationship into three broad buckets: how work shapes the perception of self, household interactions, and relationships with the outside world. Our PAP outlines how each of these outcomes is measured.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our sample households spanned 280 sub-blocks, with each sub-block randomly assigned to one of the three experimental arms (80 blocks each) and a control group (40 blocks). Each household we selected was randomized into having the husband or the wife receive the respective intervention. Table \ref{baltable} reports summary statistics and balance across the arms. All households were informed that the study would last six weeks, with surveyors returning weekly to a pre-assigned meeting point to conduct five-minute surveys and provide compensation. In the 40 control sub-blocks, the selected wife or husband of the couple was informed that s(he) would receive 50 taka (USD \$0.50) as compensation for the weekly surveys. In the 80 cash sub-blocks, this individual was informed that s(he) would receive 1200 taka (USD \$12) as compensation for the weekly surveys. In the 80 work sub-blocks, the individual was offered an opportunity for gainful employment in which s(he) could work for an average of four days per week (either three or five) over the six weeks and be compensated 300 taka (USD \$3) per day of work, resulting in an average of 1200 taka (USD \$12) weekly; these individuals would also be asked to complete the weekly surveys. Lastly, in the 80 volunteer sub-blocks, the individual was offered an opportunity to engage in the same activity as those in the work arm, but for no pay, beyond the 50 taka (USD \$0.50) received as compensation for completion of the weekly surveys. The randomized nature of treatment allocation was made public to all participants, with surveyors displaying the participant's randomized treatment status on their tablet screen.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
We randomize at the sub-block level within the refugee camp
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The research team enlisted 2520 households across 10 camps (2E, 2W, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 17, 18, 19), with each camp apportioned into 4 to 7 blocks, and 14 to 42 sub-blocks, with the latter as our unit of randomization. Our sample households spanned 280 sub-blocks, with each sub-block randomly assigned to one of the three experimental arms (80 blocks each) and a control group (40 blocks). We selected nine households per sub-block. These households were recruited first through a random walk, in which the field team began near the center of a given sub-block, moved in a randomly selected direction, and proceeded to knock on doors and inquire about interest in participating in our study. Each household we selected was randomized into having the husband or the wife receive the respective intervention.
Sample size: planned number of observations
2520 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
The research team enlisted 2520 households across 10 camps (2E, 2W, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 17, 18, 19), with each camp apportioned into 4 to 7 blocks, and 14 to 42 sub-blocks, with the latter as our unit of randomization. Our sample households spanned 280 sub-blocks, with each sub-block randomly assigned to one of the three experimental arms (80 blocks each) and a control group (40 blocks). We selected nine households per sub-block. These households were recruited first through a random walk, in which the field team began near the center of a given sub-block, moved in a randomly selected direction, and proceeded to knock on doors and inquire about interest in participating in our study. Each household we selected was randomized into having the husband or the wife receive the respective intervention.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
For the full main treatment arm comparisons, the experiment is well powered to detect 0.15 standard deviation effect sizes at low ICC. At higher ICC levels, minimum detectable effect sizes range from 0.2-0.25 standard deviations. Observed ICCs at baseline tend towards the low end of the examined range while standardized effect sizes in Hussam et al. (2022) are typically between 0.2-0.25, suggesting that our primary specifications are well-powered.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University
IRB Approval Date
2022-10-24
IRB Approval Number
IRB22-0897
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials