Experimental Design
In this study, we will offer opportunities for women to work as either an employee or volunteer, in geographically distinct areas that are randomized into “employment” and “volunteering” agglomerations. Other than the name of the work opportunity, we will keep everything else constant, including compensation, contract, work schedule, and activities. All work opportunities will be offered by our implementing partner, Life Makers, who aims to recruit women to carry out a large development project in Sohag. Our research study centers around the recruitment of these workers. This NGO works with both employees and volunteers to implement their projects, making this a natural setting to randomly vary the form of contracting between “volunteers” and “employees.”
In addition to the importance of the contract type, our pilot study suggests that women may need approval from other housheld members to apply for a work opportunity. When encouraged to apply during the pilot, 30% of the eligible women stated that they didn’t want to apply to work for the NGO because they believed their father or husband would not approve of it. Therefore, in addition to varying the name of the work opportunity, we aim to further understand the household decision-making process by randomizing whom we target in our encouragement messages. In our “Women Only” treatment arm, we will direct our encouragement messaging to the women only, while in the “Women Plus” treatment arm, we will encourage her to invite other household members to be present because they may have influence over her decision to apply for the work opportunity. This randomization will be carried out at the household level and will be implemented in both the Volunteering and Employment agglomerations. As such, there will be 4 treatment arms: 1. Volunteering with Women Only, 2. Volunteering with Women Plus, 3. Employment with Women Only, and 4. Employment with Women Plus.