Menstrual Norms: Experimental Evidence from Nepal

Intervention as in "Stigma and Discrimination: Field Evidence from a Menstrual Awareness Program in Nepal", RCT ID AEARCTR-0014814

The intervention consists of menstrual health awareness sessions aimed at educating students about menstrual hygiene, common myths, and the social taboos surrounding menstruation. Delivered by the local organization NIDISI, the sessions will provide culturally relevant, accurate information to students.

2025-11-13

2025-12-31

Donation/choice outcome per treatment: indicator and categorical for donation choice. Categorical across the three choices (i) keep the full amount for own consumption, (ii) keep half and donate half to a charity that supports maintaining traditional menstrual restrictions, or (iii) keep half and donate half to a charity that supports ending discriminatory menstrual restrictions. Binary variables for i) donation to menstrual charity, ii) donating for traditional charity, and iii) own consumption.

Comparison across treatments for lab in the field experiment, comparion across treatments in related RCT (awareness campaigns - girls, awareness campaign - boys & girls, control).

Punishment behavior: extensive (binary) and intensive margin.

Perceived norms: 4-point appropriateness rating in the norm-elicitation task for menstruation-related behaviors (paid-for modal match).

1. Expectations about punishment: beliefs about punishment by peers/elders for each action, exogenous variation of gender (male/female) punisher.
2. Internal consistency/comprehension (test questions on the basic decision game and sticker condition).
3. Heterogeneity by participant gender, own religiosity, religiosity of main decision maker in household, ethnicitiy, and other demographic data.

Revealed preference exercise 1: Volunteer for NGO to fight menstrual stigma
Revealed preference exercise 2: Snack from menstruating vs. non-menstruating woman

Religiosity measured in 2 ways: 1) on a scale from 1 to 10, 2) by participating in purifying rituals for menstruation. The second one is an equall weighted index of two variables indicating participation in collective and individual rituals.

Religiosity of main decision maker in household measured in 2 ways: 1) on a scale from 1 to 10, 2) whether the mother cooks when she is own her period.

The study implements a lab-in-the-field decision exercise with around 1,200 secondary-school students in about 30 schools in Nepal. Students make incentivized choices to show their prosociality in different scenarious with varying degrees of menstural stigma. We elicit social norms in an incentivized norm-elicitation task to measure perceived social appropriateness.

Not available

Randomization is done at the individual level by the survey software/tablet using built-in random number generation (i.e. computer-based randomization). The session-level draw for the payout-relevant round is done publicly at the end of the session.

Random variation of order of treatment at the session level.

Random variation of connected field experiment (Intervention as in "Stigma and Discrimination: Field Evidence from a Menstrual Awareness Program in Nepal", RCT ID AEARCTR-0014814):
We will vary the attendance conditions to the menstrual health awareness sessions in the schools. The intervention will involve three groups: (i) a control group with no sessions, (ii) a girls-only group, and (iii) a mixed-gender group of both girls and boys.

The content of the sessions will be the same across the treatment groups, with only the composition of the participants varying.

Individual student participant.
(There is also a session/school level in the sense that students are run in school groups, but treatment variation is at the individual level; every student sees all main conditions.)

Randomization of session order at the session level.

Random variation of connected field experiment (Intervention as in "Stigma and Discrimination: Field Evidence from a Menstrual Awareness Program in Nepal", RCT ID AEARCTR-0014814): at the level of the school.

No

30 schools with 1-6 sessions per school depending on school size.

1,200+ pupils

This is a within and between-subject experiment:
-1,200 pupils complete treatment a) anonymous
-1,200 pupils complete treatment b) Social image Peer
-1,200 pupils complete treatment c) and d) Punishment 1- Peers & Punishment 2 - Elderly

-1,200 pupils complete norm-elicitation part