Safety perceptions, female mobility, and technological solutions: An evaluation of the Women Safety App in Pakistan

Last registered on January 31, 2024

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Safety perceptions, female mobility, and technological solutions: An evaluation of the Women Safety App in Pakistan

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0012740

Initial registration date

January 31, 2024

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

January 31, 2024, 1:34 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

Pakistan

Region

South Asia

Primary Investigator

Name

Fareena Malhi

Affiliation

University of Bath

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Shsheryar Banuri

PI Affiliation

University of East Anglia

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Zehra Aftab

PI Affiliation

Prince Muhammad University

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2022-07-01

End date

2024-01-15

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Governance

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.

Abstract

An important hurdle to achieving gender equality is the restriction on female mobility. Female access to
healthcare, education, political participation, recreation, and employment, continues to demonstrate uneven
progress, despite significant progress in recent decades. One important factor in this is female mobility, that is
often restricted by norms, culture, crime, and (importantly) perceptions of safety. One solution recently
implemented in Pakistan, is the Women Safety App, specifically designed by a government agency to address
female safety concerns and in turn, facilitate female mobility. In this project, we evaluate the impact of access to
the App, on female mobility, as well as risk perceptions and beliefs.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Aftab, Zehra, Shsheryar Banuri and Fareena Malhi. 2024. "Safety perceptions, female mobility, and technological solutions: An evaluation of the Women Safety App in Pakistan ." AEA RCT Registry. January 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12740-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

In this project, we plan to test the impact of an intervention designed to reduce police response times on female mobility, and related economic outcomes, in Pakistan. Specifically, we, along with our implementing partner, the PSCA, aim to test a recent technological innovation (the Women Safety App) focused on reducing safety concerns among women in the province. The aim of this project is to increase perceptions of safety, by introducing and explaining the app to potential users. Our target population for this study are lower middle-income10 females living in the main urban center of Punjab: Lahore.

Intervention Start Date

2022-12-15

Intervention End Date

2023-02-23

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The primary outcome we propose is average distance travelled during the study period (one year following the intervention), our proxy for female mobility.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

The secondary variables of interest that can indicate the mobility of females include the number of trips that the female makes, total time spent in traveling, mode of transportation and the destinations she has travelled to. All the variables will be measured along the following dimensions: time of the day she travelled at (daytime vs evening/night), whom did she make the trip with (alone or accompanied) and what was the mode of transportation (public vs. private).

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Randomized control trial will be conducted with field experiment. Note that the treated group is shown a video demonstrating the features of the app, how it works at the back end as well as assistance in downloading and setting up the app itself. The control group is shown a placebo video, demonstrating the features of an arbitrary software.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done by computer.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

No Clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

320

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Treatment 168
Control 152

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Based on an assumed impact size of 0.3 standard deviations (an imputed increase in time spent outside the home of 5 minutes), with 0.05 alpha and a power target of 0.8, we obtain a total sample size of 349 households.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB