Essays in gender and development economics

This dissertation analyzes how social and behavioral frictions in decision-making contribute to gender inequality in developing economies. It studies factors that have received relatively little attention in economics – namely social norms, role models, and concerns about preserving identity – and examines their impact on behavior, including intimate partner violence (IPV). I use field and survey experiments in Rwanda and Nigeria to provide empirical evidence on these relationships.
Economic progress has brought about significant improvements in global living conditions, yet it has not always translated into improvements for women and girls (Dhar, Jain, & Jayachandran 2018; Duflo 2012). Currently, women comprise only 39 percent of the world’s labor force, they spend two to ten times more time on unpaid domestic and care work than men, and one in three women experiences IPV at some point in her lifetime (Ferrant, Pesando, & Nowacka, 2014; WHO, 2013). The persistence of IPV and other gender gaps in all economies and at all income levels suggests that there is no mechanical improvement in gender equality as countries become richer. Instead, sticky gender identities and social norms appear to play a role in maintaining gender inequality (Alesina, Brioschi, & La Ferrara 2020; Jayachandran 2015).
In my first paper, co-authors and I conducted a two-level randomized control trial to test the effectiveness of a government-run IPV prevention program in Rwanda, randomly assigning 98 villages and 2,042 couples into treatment and control groups. The intervention involved 22 weekly facilitated group discussions designed to reduce IPV by improving couples’ communication skills, changing individuals’ gender attitudes, and spreading a message of gender equality through the community. Randomizing at two levels– villages and couples– we assess the program’s effect both on trained couples and on ‘spillover couples’– control couples living in treated villages. Six months after the program ended, we find that it caused large, unintended increases in IPV. Women assigned to the couples training report experiencing more emotional, physical and sexual IPV compared to control couples living in control villages, with increases of 11%, 15% and 24% respectively. Spillover couples have even larger IPV increases when compared to control couples, with increases of 11%, 33% and 40% respectively. We present evidence suggesting that the IPV impacts represent a true increase in violence rather than an increase in women’s likelihood of reporting. Evidence on mechanisms suggests that the program may have increased violence because men backlashed against the perceived threat to their identity posed by program messages about women’s empowerment, and against their wives’ more progressive gender attitudes and greater aspirations.
In my second paper, I use a measurement experiment in Rwanda and Nigeria to analyze the magnitude and predictors of misreporting on intimate partner and sexual violence. I randomly assigned respondents to answer questions about IPV using one of three survey methods: an indirect method (list experiment) that gives respondents anonymity; a direct, self-administered method that increases privacy; and the standard, direct face-to-face method. In Rwanda, IPV rates are double, and in Nigeria, they increase by up to 39 percent when measured using the list method compared with the direct methods. Misreporting was associated with indicators commonly targeted in women’s empowerment interventions, including gender norms. This suggests that the standard way of measuring IPV may result in significant prevalence underestimates and biased correlations and treatment effect estimates.
For my third paper, I ran a survey experiment in Rwanda to test whether an individual’s perceptions about social norms influences their own attitudes and behaviors. I provide evidence that while the majority of men and women privately do not hold conservative gender attitudes, most over-estimate the share of others who do. I then randomly assigned women and men who over-estimated conservative gender norms to receive information updates with the ‘true’ norm (measured 12 months prior), also varying the type of role model about which people are given information. I measure the impact of this information update on an index of self-reported gender attitudes and behavior in an incentivized spouse dictator game. I find that men’s gender attitudes improve and they give more to their spouse after having their misperceptions corrected; there is no average impact for women. On role models, I find that men give more to their spouse after being told about all role models, but there is suggestive evidence that they respond most to information about village leaders. For women, there is no significant difference between being updated about men or women role models, though results suggest that women may respond negatively to having their beliefs corrected about other women. My results indicate a potentially important factor in gender inequality, where misperceived social norms affect individuals’ own gender attitudes and related behaviors.
Together, my papers contribute to our understanding of the measurement of IPV, the social and behavioral factors that contribute to gender inequality, and the effectiveness of interventions to reduce it. My research suggests that identity and norms likely represent important frictions in decision-making, and may therefore be important to address to overcome gender gaps and other forms of inequality. My research also provides evidence that interventions that challenge prevailing identities can provoke large backlashes, and that even programs intended to target individuals can cause negative spillovers to communities. This has important implications for social scientists studying gender, IPV, and other topics tied to identities, and for policymakers trying to change behaviors rooted in cultural norms.

Advisor: Labonne, J
Dercon, S