More School, Less Chores? A Field Experiment on Girl’s Education and Unpaid Work.

Last registered on July 31, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
More School, Less Chores? A Field Experiment on Girl’s Education and Unpaid Work.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008577
Initial registration date
November 16, 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
November 21, 2021, 11:18 AM EST

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

Last updated
July 31, 2023, 4:44 AM EDT

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

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
South Asia Institute (Heidelberg University)

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2021-10-13
End date
2023-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The study deals with the effects of increased girls’ school attendance on the allocation of unpaid work within the household. Unpaid work includes activities such as water fetching, child and elderly care, collecting firewood or farming, which are normally taken care of by women and girls in the family. In collaboration with a newly-opened school in India, I employ a randomized control trial to answer the following research question: once a girl starts going to school, is there an intra-household self-regulation mechanism which is activated to redistribute housework among family members, or does the time spent at school simply add up to the girl’s time spend on housework?
The study is conducted in India, where the gap that separates men and women in time spent on unpaid work is the largest in the world (OECD 2021). The focus is on rural Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, the state reporting the lowest female school attendance in India, 72.1%, for girls between 15-17 years (Government of India, 2012). Moreover, the district of Jaisalmer among all districts of Rajasthan has the lowest female literacy rate, 39.7% (Census, 2011) and the lowest girls’ enrollment at Upper Primary Level, 35.89% (NUEPA, 2018).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cibin, Cristina. 2023. "More School, Less Chores? A Field Experiment on Girl’s Education and Unpaid Work.." AEA RCT Registry. July 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8577-1.2
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2021-12-05
Intervention End Date
2023-07-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Time (minutes) spent in housework by girls
- Time (minutes) spent in housework by the girl's siblings
- Time (minutes) spent in housework by women in the household
- Short term health conditions of women and girls in the household
- School performance
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In collaboration with the NGO who set up the school in rural Jaisalmer, 6 villages in the proximity of the school, within a radius of 18km from it, have been chosen as the target population from where girls would be selected and offered to be enrolled in the school, according to their socio-economic status. A survey was carried out to collect baseline data, by means of a random walk which consisted of two steps. In the first step, the teams of enumerators discussed and identified a central point for each revenue village (an Anganwadi, a temple, a community center, the Sarpanch house, etcetera). In the second, enumerators selected households from that central point onward. If two teams were simultaneously working in the same revenue village, one team would start walking, say, South from the central point, and the other team in the opposite direction. During this walk every third household was randomly selected and surveyed if it satisfied the eligibility criterium of having at least one girl in schooling age and consent was given, otherwise the teams would move to the next household. This was done until the targeted sample size was reached. Once data of girls were collected and a threshold for enrollment was determined based on the data collected, potential beneficiaries of the school program were identified. Out of this set, each girl was assigned to either treatment (= offered an admission letter to go to school) or control, based on a random lottery carried out by a computer.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
124 girls between 6 and 8 years old
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
60 girls treatment, 64 girls control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
e IRB of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at Heidelberg University
IRB Approval Date
2022-11-09
IRB Approval Number
FESS-HD-2022-008
Analysis Plan

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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