Experimental Design
A sample of 1500 senior undergraduate students are randomly assigned into control and treatment groups. The control group has 500 students, treatment groups one and two have 500 students each. At baseline, the students are asked about their demographic characteristics, education and experience, ideal spouse characteristics, and their work plans after graduation. A representative survey of Saudi Arabian men was previously conducted to collect men’s marriage preferences and their attitudes towards their wives/future wives working. All students (treatment and control) are shown the questions that were asked in the men’s survey and are asked to guess what percentage of Saudi Arabian men agreed with these statements. This step is incentivized in order to receive their most accurate perceptions. In the treatment groups, the students are then provided with the actual percentage of men who agreed with the statements. The difference between treatment one and treatment two is the type of statements that are shown. In treatment one, the statements are about men’s acceptability of their wives working in general. In treatment two, in addition to the statements that were provided in treatment one, we show statements about men’s acceptability of their wives working in specific (unconventional) work environments such as non-segregated workplaces and having to drive to work.
For the outcomes, we first ask about their aspirations by asking questions on their likelihood to apply for a job and likelihood for applying for jobs with different characteristics. Then, based on their qualifications and through an incentivized choice experiment, we provide pairs of real job vacancies to choose from in order to elicit their valuation for the following non-wage characteristics: segregated workplace, full-time job, work in office only, options to extend paid maternity leave, option for free child care close to the workplace. We observe if the information provided in the treatment affects the valuation of the treatment groups relative to the control. Lastly, we mention that the organization that we partnered with to provide us with these job vacancies can send them emails whenever they receive new job vacancies and we observe whether they choose to sign up for these emails over a subscription to newsletters and offers from a popular e-commerce website in Saudi Arabia.
For their employment choices, the organization collects data on their behavior throughout the study period. This data includes whether they apply for a job, attend the interview, accept the offer, and if they applied/attended any of the job training programs that the organization provides. Lastly, because the students can also find jobs elsewhere, we administer a follow-up survey 8 months later to ask whether they applied/searched for jobs, are employed (if so, what are the characteristics of the job), and we also ask about their marriage outcomes (if married, what are their spouse characteristics and do they have children).