Survey experiment on migration and counterfactual families

Last registered on March 18, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Survey experiment on migration and counterfactual families
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015546
Initial registration date
March 11, 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
March 18, 2025, 11:05 AM EDT

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

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
CERDI, Université Clermont Auvergne

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-03-21
End date
2025-09-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
International migration of unmarried individuals can be hindered by the inability to imagine and visualize the characteristics of one's own future spouse in the destination country. The objective of this survey experiment is to understand whether unmarried individuals are differentially able to visualize the spouse's characteristics into two distinct scenario: (i) a no migration scenario, and (ii) a migration scenario, whose order is randomized. Furthermore, we elicit migration intentions to the US and ask respondents how much important marriage considerations are when deciding to migrate from Mexico to the United States. We ask this in absolute terms and relatively to other standard factors of migration, such as wage differentials and career prospects
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bertoli, Simone and David McKenzie. 2025. "Survey experiment on migration and counterfactual families." AEA RCT Registry. March 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15546-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our main analysis will be a within-subject design, where the treatment is being asked about scenarios if you were to move to the U.S., compared to the same scenario of you were to stay in Mexico. We randomize at the individual level the order in which we ask these scenarios, and will control for order in our analysis.
We also conduct a between-individuals experiment to look at whether asking questions about marriage and migration changes the expressed desire to migrate to the U.S.
Intervention Start Date
2025-03-21
Intervention End Date
2025-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Subjective Probability of getting married in 10 years
2. Unable to say what characteristics of future spouse will be..
3. Hard to picture other characteristics of future spouse.
4. Direct response on whether it is harder to picture the spouse if they migrate
5. Direct responses on whether marriage is important in the migration decision
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. Subjective Probability of getting married in 10 years (B_US1 and B_Mex1). This is an ordinal variable with values 1 through 5. We will look at the distribution of this variable under the Mexico scenario, and create a binary outcome that is either “Extremely likely”, or if the proportion saying extremely likely is less than 25%, “Extremely likely”or “likely”. We will also look at the impact on the ordinal variable (coded 1 through 5).
2. Unable to say what characteristics of future spouse will be. This is the sum of the unable to say responses for B_Mex2, B_Mex3 and B_Mex4 for the in Mexico case, and of B_Us2, B_Us3, and B_Us4 for the U.S. case – measuring unsureness about the age, place of birth, and education of the spouse. We will also look at the unable to say response separately for each of the three spouse characteristics: age, education and place of birth.
3. Hard to picture other characteristics of future spouse. This is an ordinal variable ranging from 1 = very uncertain to 5 = certain, asked in B_Mex5 and B_US5. We will use this as an ordinal variable, but also look at the impact on the binary variable “very uncertain”. If the proportion of the latter is less than 25%, we will also look at the binary variable taking one if “very uncertain” or “uncertain”.

Descriptive direct responses:
1. Direct response on whether it is harder to picture the spouse if they migrate: proportion answering B9 = 3 (no regression).
2. Direct responses on whether marriage is important in the migration decision:
a. Absolute terms: Based on Outcome C4_4 (how important is marriage)
b. Relative terms: Comparing the proportion who say Outcome C4_4 is very important or important (3 or 4), to those saying this for wages, legal status, and career prospects.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Outcome 1: ideal desire to migrate (Question C1)
Outcome 2: Concrete steps (Question C2)
Outcome 3: likelihood of migrating in next couple of years (Question C3)

Descriptive response:
2. Variance in the responses about spouse characteristics (secondary outcome)
In each scenario (Mexico and US), we will compute the variance of the responses given for each spouse characteristics (age, education, birthplace), excluding the “unable to say” response. We will then compare the variance of the responses between the US and the Mexico scenario, separately for each of these three characteristics. We will also construct an index of spouse characteristics as the first component of a PCA using responses about spouse age, education and birthplace, and examine the variance of this index in the Mexico and US scenario
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our main analysis will be a within-subject design, where the treatment is being asked about scenarios if you were to move to the U.S., compared to the same scenario of you were to stay in Mexico. We randomize at the individual level the order in which we ask these scenarios, and will control for order in our analysis.

We also conduct a between-individuals experiment to look at whether asking questions about marriage and migration change the expressed desire to migrate to the U.S.
Here, we will look at how migration intentions differ between respondents who
- answered questionnaire Block C before Block B (control)
- answered questionnaire Block B before Block C (treated)
to assess whether getting asked about migration and family first change migration intentions. We randomize at the individual level the order in which we ask Block C and Block B.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomizer in oTree
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1000 individuals (Mexican men aged 18-25)
Sample size: planned number of observations
1000 individuals (Mexican men aged 18-25)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Within-subject design for main experiment: so 1000 get both treatment (in U.S. scenario) and control (in Mexico scenario), with order randomized.
Across-subject experiment: 500 get block B before block C, 500 get block B after block C
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information