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The Psychosocial Impacts of Forced Idleness

Last registered on June 12, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Psychosocial Impacts of Forced Idleness
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006000
Initial registration date
June 11, 2020

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 12, 2020, 12:56 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
Bangladesh
Region
South Asia

Primary Investigator

Name
Reshmaan Hussam
Affiliation
Harvard Business School
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Fatima Zahra
PI Affiliation
Harvard School of Public Health
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PI Name
Gregory Lane
PI Affiliation
American University
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PI Name
Erin Kelley
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-10-30
End date
2020-12-31
Keywords
Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Post-conflict
Additional Keywords
unemployment, refugees, forcibly displaced persons
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Social scientists have long posited that employment may deliver social and psychological utility beyond the value of income alone. While cross-sectional evidence around this question exists, this literature suffers from challenges of selection and conflation of pecuniary and non-pecuniary mechanisms. This study presents real-world causal estimates of the psychosocial benefits of employment. We address both limitations in the literature by exogenously imposing employment opportunities and including a comparable group that benefits solely from the pecuniary dimension of employment. We run a field experiment in which we randomize 745 individuals of working age into three arms: (1) a control arm, in which no work; (2) a cash arm, in which no work is offered but a large weekly fee is provided; and (3) a work-for-cash arm, in which individuals are offered employment for eight weeks for an equivalent weekly fee. We work with the recently displaced Rohingya refugees who reside in the largest refugee camp in the world upon the southern tip of Bangladesh, and further explore the mediating roles of past exposure to violence and future uncertainty on the psychosocial value of employment.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hussam, Reshmaan et al. 2020. "The Psychosocial Impacts of Forced Idleness." AEA RCT Registry. June 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6000-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date
2019-11-20
Intervention End Date
2020-02-04

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We have seven primary outcomes of interest: time-use, mental health, stability, physical health, cognitive function, economic decision making, and willingness to work. Please refer to the attached PAP for details on each.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our main intervention is providing work tasks to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

We want to identify the impact of providing work tasks on psychosocial wellbeing (benchmarked against the impact of providing a cash transfer). We also want to determine whether the effects of providing work tasks vary with: (i) uncertainty in work-schedule (mimicking daily labor) and (ii) experience of past violence.

We have four treatment arms:
1. Control group (C): individuals receive a small weekly payment (50 Taka ~ 0.60 USD)
2. Treatment 1 (T1): individuals receive a large weekly payment (450 Taka ~ 5.30 USD)
3. Treatment 2 (T2 - Certainty): individuals are offered the opportunity to work for pay. They receive 150 Taka (1.77 USD) per day of work and a pre-filled calendar that highlights the days they are supposed to work.
4. Treatment 3 (T3 - Uncertainty): individuals are also offered the opportunity to work for pay, receiving 150 Taka (1.77 USD) per day of work. They do not receive a calendar with pre-filled dates -- they are informed every week about the days they would be hired for the following week.

To estimate the impact of receiving a large amount of cash (as opposed to a small amount), we compare outcomes from T1 to C. To estimate the impact of work (as opposed to receiving a small amount of cash), we compare the outcomes of T2 and T3 to C.

To estimate how certainty mediates the impact of work, we compare outcomes of T2 to T1 and T3 to T1.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization is done in the office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Our main randomization is done at the block level (five households per block). Various sub-randomizations (as described in detail in the attached PAP) are conducted at the individual level.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
153
Sample size: planned number of observations
745
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
33 blocks in control, 33 blocks in cash, 87 blocks in work-for-cash
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Details provided in attached PAP.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University-Area Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2019-06-21
IRB Approval Number
IRB19-0067
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan: The Psychosocial Impacts of Forced Idleness

MD5: 2d24224a18626d5b67343af48ef3ee18

SHA1: 760e436991c1db78d6253275c0aaf8265d40aaef

Uploaded At: June 11, 2020

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials