Encouraging Flexible Work Arrangements: A Field Experiment with Employers in Uruguay

Last registered on June 23, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Encouraging Flexible Work Arrangements: A Field Experiment with Employers in Uruguay
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0018915
Initial registration date
June 19, 2026

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
June 23, 2026, 8:32 AM EDT

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
Elisa Failache
Affiliation
Universidad de la República
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Martina Querejeta
PI Affiliation
Universidad de la República
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PI Name
Andrew Morrison
PI Affiliation
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2026-06-03
End date
2027-12-03
Keywords
Firms & Productivity, Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
flexibility
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The objective of this project is to identify opportunities for promoting flexible work and increasing female labor force participation in Uruguay. To this end, we will conduct an experiment to evaluate whether minor changes to the messages companies receive when registering a vacancy on an online job portal can convince employers to offer flexible work options. For this purpose, when posting the job offer, a randomly selected group of employers is going to be exposed to a message promoting the option to mark the position as flexible through various work arrangements, while the control group will view the standard template. We aim to explore the effectiveness of alternative messaging to increase the number of job postings that include flexibility and the effects by gender on the number of applicants for positions with and without flexible work options.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Failache, Elisa, Andrew Morrison and Martina Querejeta. 2026. "Encouraging Flexible Work Arrangements: A Field Experiment with Employers in Uruguay ." AEA RCT Registry. June 23. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18915-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A randomly selected group of employers are going to be exposed to a message promoting the option to post a job offer as flexible through various work arrangements.
Intervention Start Date
2026-06-03
Intervention End Date
2027-06-03

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Selection of flexibility arrangements in job posting
- Number of job candidates per job posting
- Number of job candidates by gender and job posting
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
- Heterogeneous effects of selection of flexibility and number of job candidates by type of firms (sector, number previous job offer publications)
- Heterogeneous effects of number of job candidates by type of worker
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Message promoting the option to post a job offer position as flexible through various work arrangements.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer using Stata software
Randomization Unit
Firm
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
We need at least 1800 firms. This is expected to be achieved between 6 to 12 months. In previous years, in 6 months there were 1800 firm in 6 months, and 2600 in 12 months.
Sample size: planned number of observations
The median of job offers by firm is 1 and the average is 2.8. We plan to have between 1800 and 5000 observations.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
At least 600 firms by treatment arm (2 active treatment arm + 1 control group)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Reaching a total of 1,800 companies, we have the capacity to detect an effect of 0.15 standard deviations with two treatment groups (two alternative messages). This means we could detect the treatment effect if it resulted in at least an increase of 74 applications on average per job posting (with an average of 408 applications), and 58 applications from women (with an average of 263 applications from women).
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Comité de Ética de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración
IRB Approval Date
2026-02-11
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan