Measuring Worker’s Willingness to Comply with Social Norms in Pakistan

To reveal male workers willingness to comply with social norms regarding strict segregation of sexes in garment factories. We use a hypothetical choice method and a behavioural game with the Becker-Degroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism.

2024-09-30

2025-02-28

The primary outcome is workers’ willingness to comply with social norms. The outcome comes
from the marble sorting game. This is the lowest willing rate for the helper reported by each top
manager. The greater the lowest willing rate is, the more willing he is to comply with the social
norm of physical segregation of the sexes

Marble Sorting Game:
We conduct a marble sorting game with a simplified BDM mechanism to elicit workers’ willingness to comply with social norms that idealize strict physical separation of the sexes. We use a variation of the BDM mechanism called the multiple price list (MPL) method. It has respondents reject or accept different prices, rather than asking them to name their willing prices as in the traditional BDM. The MPL method is applied in the round 2 of the sorting game. In this game, a worker is asked to sort marbles for a short period of time for a monetary prize.
The prize is determined by the quantity he sorts in the given time multiplied by a fixed rate. He is also offered a helper who can help him sort more marbles, thus increasing his prize earnings. Randomly chosen, 50 % of the sample is offered a female helper. If the female helper joins him to play the game, the quantity sorted by her times a different fixed rate will be given to him. His prize earnings, if he plays with the female helper, is the sum of the contributions by him and the female helper.
Each worker plays two rounds. He plays the first round alone, and is offered a helper in the
second round. The second round has the MPL-BDM method, in which the worker is asked to reject or accept five different rates. These rates are for calculating the prize earning based on the quantity sorted by the helper. The worker’s rate is fixed throughout the game. WTC is the lowest of the rates he accepts at which he is willing to play this game with the female helper.
Following the BDM mechanism, whether the worker plays with the female helper and the rate
used to convert her sorted quantity to a monetary prize is determined by a randomly drawn rate
from the uniform distribution of the five rates. This rate is drawn after the top manager reveals
his lowest willing rate. If the randomly drawn rate is greater than or equal to his willing rate, he
plays the game with the female helper and uses the randomly drawn rate for her. If it is less than
his willing rate, he plays alone. This random drawing is the key aspect of the BDM mechanism; it induces truth-telling because the top manager has no control over if he gets to play the game with the female helper.
The other 50% is offered a male helper, which produces a comparison group that enables us to
learn about the roles of potential attributes, other than the helper’s gender, that may affect the
norm compliance price point

Randomization done in office by computer

Individual worker

No

0

600 workers

300 male workers are offered a female helper (treatment)
300 male workers are offered a male helper (control)

The sample size of 600 workers allows us to detect a change of 11.6 percentage points at 0.8 power level.

Pre Analysis Plan