Table 1 reports the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample at endline, together with the difference between treatment and control, and the level of significance of this difference. Sample households have large families with an average of over 8 members, including just under two children younger than 5 years old. Educational attainment is low, with 81% of household heads having received no formal schooling. The surveyed households are predominantly male-headed, with less than 1% being female-headed (only 17 households). Of the households in the sample, 42.3% are polygamous. There are a few imbalances between treatment and control: treatment households have fewer boys aged 6-16, are slightly more likely to have a household head that completed at least primary school, and are slightly less likely to have experienced a shock in the last year. We are limited on the range of variables we can test balance on given that we do not have baseline data in this experiment. However, this table also contains pre-program administrative data for a sub-sample of 86% of the cotton producers. Reassuringly, we do not find imbalances in the pre-program cotton area, which is around 3.65 ha in both experimental groups, nor in the cotton production, which is around 3770 kg.

The survey data provide a detailed picture of household agricultural tasks and cotton production in Cˆote d’Ivoire. While cotton producers are almost exclusively men, both men and women in these farm households are engaged in cotton production. Contrary to conventional wisdom detailing stark gender divisions in the performance of agricultural tasks, with men being more responsible for physically-intensive tasks like plowing and land clearing and women more responsible for weeding and sowing, Table 2 shows that there is little gender specialization in cotton-related tasks in our setting. The starkest gender difference is that household men are generally more involved than women in all tasks: over 80% of male producers perform each type of task and producers are over 10 percentage points more likely to conduct any given task than any other household member. Still, spouses are broadly engaged in agricultural tasks: 74% of spouses perform transport-related tasks while 68% plow (though consistent with the social prescriptions outlined in Section 2, rates are higher for plowing without oxen than with oxen). Similarly, while 55% of spouses sow and weed, 85% of male producers also perform these tasks. The only two tasks in which women (producer’s spouse and other women in the household) are relatively less involved are land clearing (40% for spouses) and marketing (9% for spouses).

Our data suggests systematic gender differences in perceived skill in handling oxen, which are endogenous to treatment. Figure 2 presents the distribution of different household members’ perceived skill levels, as reported by the cotton producer. Over 85% of girls and women are reported to have no oxen skills, about 30 and 60 percentage points above the equivalent rates for boys and for the male producer, respectively. The sizable difference in skill rates between boys and girls persists even for children under 10 years old, suggesting that social norms attribute higher perceived skills for boys and men, relative to girls and women.

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