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Gender Identity and Rental Market Outcomes

Last registered on May 02, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Gender Identity and Rental Market Outcomes
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008320
Initial registration date
October 04, 2021

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
October 07, 2021, 2:24 PM EDT

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

Last updated
May 02, 2022, 1:37 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
California

Primary Investigator

Name
Bryan Tomlin
Affiliation
California State University Channel Islands
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-05-01
End date
2022-08-01
Keywords
Behavior, Gender
Additional Keywords
Housing
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The Fair Housing Act, through Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “prohibits discrimination in housing because of: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, [and] disability.” This list notably excludes gender identity, to the extent that such identity is not inherent to “sex.” Using a well-worn correspondence methodology with a novel treatment, this study aims to identify how market behavior is affected by (a) the decision to disclose one's gender identity, and (b) whether the disclosed gender identity matches the individual's biological (chromosomal) sex.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Tomlin, Bryan. 2022. "Gender Identity and Rental Market Outcomes." AEA RCT Registry. May 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8320-2.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2021-05-01
Intervention End Date
2022-08-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Identify feelings with regards to explicitly stated gender identity and trans people.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
"Feelings" (as used above) are proxied by the average willingness of landlords to invite applicants to the next stage of the rental process, when the unit being rented is an ADU located on their property. These types of units are being specifically selected due to their intimacy with either the landlord (should they live in the "main house" on the property) or with another tenant (should the "main house" also be rented). As such, this study will not identify (nor does it aim to identify) the typical experiences of people in the housing market, but rather the willingness of landlords to accept certain people into such "intimate" living arrangements.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A correspondence study in a subset of the California rental housing market (the market for rental ADUs).
Experimental Design Details
Email inquiries will be sent to small landlords who are listing detached "back houses" (auxiliary dwelling units) for rent using a common template that is varied experimentally to create the treatment and control groups. An illustrative sample is below:

My name is {Name 1} {pronoun} and I am interested in the guest house you posted to Craigslist. I work nearby, so I really like the location. Also, I have solid credit (last I checked my credit score was in the upper 700s), but just so you know in advance, if you need to run it it’ll be under the name {Name 2} ({Name 1} is my {preference} name).

Where:
- {Name 1} is randomly selected to be either "male sounding" or "female sounding"
- {pronoun} is randomly selected to be either: "(he/him)", "(she/her)", or blank (blank is the control group). The pronoun will also match the gender of {Name 1} (e.g. "Emily" will either receive "(she/her)" as her pronouns, or blank).
- {Name 2} is randomly selected to be either "male sounding" or "female sounding." These might NOT match the gender of {Name 1}. If the {Name 1} and {Name 2} genders do not match, this constitutes the transgender treatment.
- {preference} is selected to be "middle" if {Name 1} and {Name 2} genders match or "preferred" if {Name 1} and {Name 2} genders mismatch.

This creates 3 possible scripts which constitute a control and two treatments, namely: (1) Control for (fe)male sounding names (with no pronouns listed), (2) Treatment for (fe)male sounding Name 1's with gender identities that match Name 2, and (3) Treatment for (fe)male sounding Name 1's with gender identities that do not match Name 2.
Randomization Method
Control and treatment are randomly assigned by computer (rando number generator within Google Sheets).
Randomization Unit
ADU apartment listings.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
At least 600 ADU listings
Sample size: planned number of observations
At least 600 ADU listings
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
At least 200 for the control, and at least 200 for each of the 2 treatments (so at least 600). Should the sample size grow beyond 600, given that treatment and control are assigned randomly, it is expected to grow proportionately (i.e. 1/3 control, 1/3 treatment 1, 1/3 treatment 2).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Response rates are the key outcome variable and are measured as a % of landlords responding to applicants within a given treatment or control. Based upon previous literature, the expected response rate will be somewhere between 60% and 80%. There is little precedent on which to base expected differences in this outcome variable for this particular treatment, so I'll run through a few power calculations (where p1 = response rate to the control group, delta = difference in response rate between control and treatment, assuming alpha = 0.05, power = 0.80, n_control = 200, and n_treatment = 200) [1] If p1 = 0.80, minimum detectable delta = 0.123 [2] If p1 = 0.75, minimum detectable delta = 0.130 [3] if P1 = 0.70, minimum detectable delta = 0.135 [4] if p1 = 0.65, minimum detectable delta = 0.138 [5] if p1 = 0.60, minimum detectable delta = 0.14
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
CSU Channel Islands IRB
IRB Approval Date
2020-10-30
IRB Approval Number
IO5544
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
October 23, 2022, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
October 22, 2022, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
495 landlords: 6 treatments
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
495
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
83 Female Preferred Name, Female Birth Name, No pronouns disclosed 82 Female Preferred Name, Female Birth Name, Pronouns disclosed 83 Female Preferred Name, Male Birth Name, Pronouns disclosed 85 Male Preferred Name, Male Birth Name, No pronouns disclosed 85 Male Preferred Name, Female Birth Name, Pronouns disclosed 77 Male Preferred Name, Male Birth Name, Pronouns disclosed
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials