Migrant workers face multiple information constraints in their foreign country of employment. Restricted information on vacant jobs increases the costs of searching for new employment. In addition, lack of knowledge about legal rights and regulations regarding changing employers, and incorrect knowledge about market conditions can further restrict labor mobility. This research seeks to test whether relaxing different types of information constraints faced by foreign domestic workers in Singapore improves their labor market outcomes.
External Link(s)
Citation
Shrestha, Slesh A. and Dean Yang. 2018. "Information Interventions to Facilitate Job Mobility among Migrant Workers." AEA RCT Registry. September 05. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3204-1.0.
The interventions focused on sharing different types of informations: (1) information on legal rights of FDWs to change employer; (2) information on actual wages and other employment terms and conditions in the Singapore FDW labor market; and (3) information on current job vacancies.
The experiment included 4 treatment arms (and a control group). FDWs who are currently employed in Singapore were randomly assigned to receive either one of the three types of information, or all three information. The control FDWs received no information.
Intervention Start Date
2016-03-01
Intervention End Date
2018-09-30
Primary Outcomes (end points)
Employment outcomes: monthly earnings, daily work hours, rest days, and freedom of movement.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Experimental Design
We implemented a randomized field experiment to test the effects of different information interventions on employment outcomes. The study participants were migrant workers who were working as foreign domestic helpers in Singapore. They were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment arms or the control group. All participants were administered a baseline survey, and those selected into the treatment group received the treatment soon thereafter.
All participants were provided with SGD10 for participating in the survey, and they were interviewed in the followup survey via phone or text.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was conducted using an built-in algorithm in the survey tablet, which assigned the treatment arm (or control) after the completion of the baseline survey.
Randomization Unit
Individual FDWs
Was the treatment clustered?
No
Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
1221 FDWs
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
258 FDWs control; 256 FDWs received information on legal rights, 263 FDWs received information on market employment terms and conditions, 226 FDWs received information on job vacancies, and 218 FDWs received all three types of information.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)