Social norms, men's beliefs, and women voting

Last registered on February 02, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social norms, men's beliefs, and women voting
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012898
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
February 02, 2024, 4:19 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Muhammad Yasir Khan
Affiliation
University of Pittsburgh
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Saad Gulzar
PI Affiliation
Princeton University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-01-18
End date
2027-08-31
Keywords
Behavior, Gender
Additional Keywords
Beliefs, Social Norms, Voting, Gender Gap
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Women turnout at a lower rate to vote in elections compared to men in many societies. We investigate if the low turnout is the result of misbeliefs about social norms or misbeliefs of men about how women vote. We plan implement two interventions: (i) provide correct information support for women voting among men of the community, and (ii) correct beliefs about alignment between candidate choices of women and men in elections. We will study the effect of these interventions on turnout decisions of women.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gulzar, Saad and Muhammad Yasir Khan. 2024. "Social norms, men's beliefs, and women voting." AEA RCT Registry. February 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12898-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We provide correct information to male and female respondents by visiting them in their households. Female and male enumerators will speak to respective respondents and convey information to them on a scale of 10 using visual aids. Each person will be spoken to individually and keeping with local norms of interaction.
There are two types of information we provide to the respondents. First, information about social norms which is the average number of people out of 10 who support women voting in the village. Second, is information on alignment between candidate choice of women and men. This information is also conveyed on a scale of 10 people.
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-22
Intervention End Date
2024-02-08

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Female voter turnout
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Female voter turnout: This is our main primary outcome. We will record our female respondent to have voted, if the enumerators can verify indelible ink mark on their thumbs after the elections.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Beliefs and household decision making
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Beliefs about turnout.: Respondents will be asked to predict the turnout in upcoming elections in an incentivized manner.
Household decision making: In a post treatment survey, we will ask men if they allow women to make a decision about donating money to a political gathering or if the men want to make this decision for them. We will vary whether if the political gathering could be held hosted at the house of political opponents of the male respondents.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We first conduct a baseline survey with randomly selected households. Based on the baseline beliefs of male and female respondents of each households about support for women voting among the men of the community, we divide the sample in two. In the sample, where both men and women are strongly pessimistic, we provide correct information, based on baseline and administrative data, to male and female respondents on (i) whether men in their community supports women voting, and (ii) whether women vote the same candidates as men in the area. The intervention information is provided on a scale of 10. We will cross randomize households into these two types of information treatments. Control households do not receive any information.
In the sample, where either men or women or both are more optimistic than the community average, we randomly select half of the households to receive information on only point (ii) described above. The other half act as control and do not receive any information.
Our enumerators talk to each male and female respondent in the treatment phase of the experiment, irrespective of their treatment status to get their responses to a few questions.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Computer program written in Stata
Randomization Unit
We first randomly selected villages/settlements out of a list of villages. Then, we randomize households within villages to receive either treatment or control.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Not clustered
Sample size: planned number of observations
Since, we are conducting the experiment in a short time frame we plan to reach between 2500 and 4000 households.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We'll know this number after only the last day of the field work which is just before the elections.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Pittsburgh
IRB Approval Date
2023-12-15
IRB Approval Number
MOD21100202-004
Analysis Plan

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