Intrahousehold Gender Inequality, Downside Risk and Technology Adoption: The effect of increased labor productivity on income sharing in Mozambique

Last registered on November 15, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Intrahousehold Gender Inequality, Downside Risk and Technology Adoption: The effect of increased labor productivity on income sharing in Mozambique
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014775
Initial registration date
November 05, 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
November 15, 2024, 1:31 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
Rachel Jones
Affiliation
University of California, Davis
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-11-11
End date
2025-10-31
Keywords
Agriculture, Behavior, Gender
Additional Keywords
Technology adoption, intrahousehold allocation of resources, contract theory, risk management, gender norms
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
The objective of the experiment is to test whether the intrahousehold distribution of cash crop income has the potential to constrain agricultural technology adoption among Mozambiquan maize farmers. In cross-sectional survey data of rural Mozambican households, I document a rule of thumb whereby husband-to-wife income transfers as a function of variable maize yields are flat in good years, and decrease in bad years. In a non-unitary, separate spheres household in which labor is non-contractible, income transfers indirectly incentivize the wife's effort in cash crop production. I show analytically that a productivity-increasing technology can exacerbate the misalignment of incentives between husbands and wives if the institution of the intrahousehold transfer fails to evolve.

In the first round of an incentivized game played in couples, wives choose to allocate their labor across their husbands' cash crop and a risk-free market activity; husbands draw an agricultural yield from a probability distribution that is conditional on the wife's labor decision; and husbands choose how to distribute their crop income. The first round of the game permits elicitation of an equilibrium labor allocation and transfer function under a low-return technology that is calibrated to resemble local varieties of maize.

In a second round, we introduce a high productivity maize variety and allow couples to choose labor and transfers. This round permits me to study the extent to which husbands adjust their transfers to wives to induce an increase in wives' maize labor.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Jones, Rachel. 2024. "Intrahousehold Gender Inequality, Downside Risk and Technology Adoption: The effect of increased labor productivity on income sharing in Mozambique." AEA RCT Registry. November 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14775-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
In the game setting, couples will determine how to share maize income. As a function of the division of income, the wife will decide how to allocate her labor between maize and an alternative activity for which she earns a market wage. The wife’s labor decision will affect the distribution of potential maize yields and game payouts. In the second part of the game, participants will experience an exogenous increase in the returns to agricultural labor. This shock to agricultural productivity enables us to study whether husbands adjust income sharing rules in order to increase their spouse’s agricultural labor in the game setting.
Intervention Start Date
2024-11-11
Intervention End Date
2024-12-20

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Number of days wife allocates to maize production in the game; Meticais (Mozambican currency) of maize income that husbands commit to share with their wife given each potential maize yield
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Total hours of wife's labor in maize production (non-game outcome); total income transfers from husband to wife from December 2024 to June 2025
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The game will target a subset of households that participated in previous rounds of a household survey, and recruit new households who have not participated in the household survey. We intend to play the game with 560 households. We will recruit 280 of these couples from households that participated in previous rounds of the household survey. We will refer to this subset of participants as in-sample couples. The other 280 participating couples will be recruited from households who have not participated in in the household survey.

The 560 couples (28 couples in each of 20 communities) who receive the game treatment will be exposed to two game components, each of which constitutes a different treatment. A “within” comparison of the couples’ behavior across game components will yield a sample size of 1,120 observations, with 560 couples per treatment condition.

In addition, we can study the effect of exposure to the game on out-of-game behavior by comparing the 280 households who were randomized to the game treatment and will participate in future rounds of the household survey to the 280 households that were randomized to the control group of the game treatment.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization for the within comparison of participant behavior across game treatment rounds is the individual. The unit of randomization for the study of the effects of game play on out-of-game behavior is the community.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Within comparison of participant behavior across game treatment rounds: 1. Effects of game play on out-of-game behavior: 40
Sample size: planned number of observations
Within comparison of participant behavior across game treatment rounds: 1120. Effects of game play on out-of-game behavior: 560
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Within comparison of participant behavior across game treatment rounds: 560. Effects of game play on out-of-game behavior: 230
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The sample is designed to achieve minimum detectable effects on the in-game labor choice and expected husband-to-wife transfers of 0.2 standard deviations with 80% power. We will be able to detect effects of 0.3 standard deviations on endline measures of wives’ maize labor and husband-to-wife transfers with 80% power and assuming an intra-class correlation coefficient of .045.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Davis Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-04
IRB Approval Number
2156679-1
Analysis Plan