Drivers of Intra-Household Labor Supply Complementarities: Evidence from an Urban Labor Market in India

Last registered on January 13, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Drivers of Intra-Household Labor Supply Complementarities: Evidence from an Urban Labor Market in India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015157
Initial registration date
January 12, 2025

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 13, 2025, 2:02 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

Affiliation
Harvard University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-07-11
End date
2025-04-01
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Women across emerging economies face substantial barriers to working outside the home, including unsafe commutes, risk of workplace harassment, and intra-household constraints. Working alongside one’s spouse can simultaneously ease several of these constraints. While labor supply complementarities between network members have been documented, research on co-working couples remains scarce. This project, based in Tamil Nadu, India, uses an incentivized discrete choice experiment to examine the prevalence, drivers, and downstream consequences of co-working among married couples.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Tandon, Shreya. 2025. "Drivers of Intra-Household Labor Supply Complementarities: Evidence from an Urban Labor Market in India." AEA RCT Registry. January 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15157-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
I implement an incentivized discrete choice experiment with a sample of married couples employed in the garment sector in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, a major garment manufacturing hub. A large majority of workers in this setting are rural-urban migrants from other states in India. Each spouse is surveyed separately and asked to choose between a series of pairs of hypothetical jobs with randomly varying wages and amenities. I randomly vary the following features of each job: (1) monthly salary (2) commute time (3) whether the job has a single vacancy or is hiring multiple people so both spouses could work together (4) whether the job entails night shift work (5) provisions for women's safety in the workplace (6) whether the supervisors and co-workers can speak the respondent's native language.

To incentivize truthful preference-reporting, respondents will be told that we will use their job choices to suggest real job profiles at nearby garment factories, and share their profiles/contact information with the relevant HR managers.

Couples will be randomly assigned to one of two arms, stratifying by their current co-working status:
• “Joint recommendation” arm: both spouses will be recommended to HR, so they may potentially be hired together.
• “Single recommendation” arm: only one spouse will be recommended to HR; husband or wife randomly selected with equal probability.

In the weeks following the survey, couples will receive up to 4 phone calls informing them about different job profiles, identified based on their responses to the discrete choice survey. If the household decides that the profile of the selected spouse(s) should be shared with HR for a specific job opportunity, they must confirm their interest by calling a hotline number managed by the research team.
Intervention Start Date
2024-12-21
Intervention End Date
2025-03-07

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Stated preference between pairs of hypothetical jobs; interest in being recommended to the HR manager for real job opportunities (measured during the survey and tracked through calls made to a hotline number)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Beliefs about the likelihood of being hired together in the solo recommendation arm
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Recruitment: I conduct a door-to-door listing survey in urban neighborhoods in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, India located close to clusters of garment manufacturing factories. Survey teams are allocated to residential compounds and all households are surveyed within the compound. In each household, at most one person is surveyed (any adult member available at home), provided the household has at least one member who works in a garment factory. During the listing survey, I collect demographic information on all garment workers living in the household. Respondents are informed that as part of the study we will share worker profiles with HR managers at garment factories that are looking to hire new workers in the coming months. Respondents are asked to indicate whether they or anyone in their household would be interested in being recommended for work opportunities, and if yes, they are required to fill out a CV form to confirm their interest.

Sample: I use the data from the listing survey to identify married couples where both husband and wife are currently working in a garment factory or have worked in one during the past year. The sample includes couples currently working in the same establishment and those who work separately. I exclude households that said they were not interested in being recommended for work opportunities and those that did not fill out the CV.

Incentivized Job Choice Experiment: Once eligible households have been identified through the listing exercise, a pair of enumerators will return to the household to complete the main survey. Both husband and wife will be surveyed separately. The survey modules include: demographics, work history, beliefs about commuting safety and workplace safety, gender attitudes, spousal control/relationship quality. A hypothetical job choice experiment is also embedded into the survey. Before starting the job choice module, the respondent is informed that the research team is in contact with several HR managers at garment factories located close by who are looking to hire new workers and have randomly selected people from each household whose profiles will be shared with these HR managers. Respondents are told that they will be asked to choose between a series of hypothetical jobs and their responses will be used by the study team, to learn what kinds of jobs they like, so we can recommend them to opportunities that are aligned with their preferences. The respondent is also informed that at the end of the survey the enumerator will inform them who has been chosen from their household for the recommendation opportunity.

Each respondent is shown 7 pairs of hypothetical jobs with randomly varying wages and amenities, and asked to indicate which job they would prefer if they had the opportunity to do both. I randomly vary the following features of each job: (1) monthly salary (2) commute time (3) whether the job has a single vacancy or is hiring multiple people so both spouses could work together (4) whether the job entails night shift work (5) provisions for women's safety in the workplace (6) whether most of the co-workers can speak the respondent's native language. Randomization is at the individual x question level, and I stratify by gender, experience (<2 years or >= 2 years), and whether the respondent is currently working at the same establishment as their spouse or not.


Couples will be randomly assigned to one of two arms, stratifying by their current co-working status:
• “Joint recommendation” arm: both spouses will be recommended to HR, so they may potentially be hired together.
• “Single recommendation” arm: only one spouse will be recommended to HR; husband or wife randomly selected with equal probability.

In the weeks following the survey, couples will receive up to 4 phone calls informing them about different job profiles, identified based on their responses to the discrete choice survey. If the household decides that the profile of the selected spouse(s) should be shared with HR for a specific job opportunity, they must confirm their interest by calling a hotline number managed by the research team.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Features of the hypothetical jobs will be randomized at the individual x job level (each respondent is shown 7 pairs of hypothetical jobs). The type of recommendation (joint v.s. single) will be randomized at the household level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
A minimum of 400 respondents (200 couples), with up to 600 if recruitment permits.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Assuming a sample size of 400: A minimum of 2800 observations for the within-survey outcome measures (stated preference interest in hypothetical jobs). Up to 800 observations for the post-survey outcome measures (revealed preference interest in job offers at the household level). Additionally, an unincentivized version of the discrete choice experiment was implemented with close to 200 respondents as part of piloting. Willingness to pay for amenities will be estimated based on the main sample as well as a stacked sample that includes the pilot survey data.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 couples in the joint recommendation arm, 100 in the solo recommendation arm.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University-Area Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2024-06-27
IRB Approval Number
IRB24-0645