# **1 Introduction**

Most rural households in lower-income countries rely on farming as their primary source of income, and on labor as the primary input to agricultural production. Mechanization, particularly in the form of animal traction, has the potential to raise agricultural incomes and facilitate the structural transformation of developing country economies. Previous research has identified which conditions favor the adoption of animal traction. Yet observational studies on its potential benefits yield nuanced results, and there is a dearth of rigorous evidence on impacts. In addition to knowledge gaps around how mechanization economically influences agricultural households, we also know little about whether (and why) technology adoption has differential impacts within the household. In this paper, we show that labor-saving technology can have large economic benefits, but that examining intra-household impacts—including gendered impacts—is crucial to understanding longer-term ramifications.

In a two-year randomized phase-in trial conducted with 2,546 cotton farmers in rural Cˆote d’Ivoire, we test the impacts of a matching grant that covered 50% of the cost and delivery of a pair of oxen. We find high take-up and use of the oxen, and positive impacts on agricultural production. In the first agricultural season, producers increased their cotton production and cotton revenues by 7%, despite only being notified about the program and receiving the oxen after planting decisions were made. Second season agricultural outcomes show that households increased their land area under cultivation by 6%, while also increasing spending on complementary non-labor inputs by about 15%. Moreover, household member time on plots decreased by about 1.5 hours per hectare, or 7%. These results represent a lower-bound of the impacts of oxen, as the phase-in trial resulted in a non-trivial share of control households receiving the oxen in advance of the endline survey.

These effects on household members’ time use are systematically related to gender. Assignment to treatment had no significant impacts on the producer’s time use or boys’ time use, while wives and girls decreased the time spent on household plots by almost 6% and 10%, respectively. In addition to this reduction in time spent working on household plots, girls were less likely to be sick, and the duration of illness over the last month reduced by about a quarter. Boys in treatment households were nearly 30% less likely to have dropped out of school, though we find no evidence of increased literacy or numeracy.

What is driving these gender-differential time use impacts? One answer comes from community gender norms around oxen use. Internationally, gendered social norms and assumptions have discouraged—or outright excluded—women from jobs that are perceived as relatively dangerous due to ‘benevolent sexism’ (Cuddy et al., 2015; Glick et al., 2000; Padavic and Reskin, 2002).<sup>1</sup> Tending to traction oxen is considered a

> 1This is true in Cˆote d’Ivoire; the country’s employment law explicitly states that women cannot engage in activities ‘beyond their strength’ and should be assigned ’suitable jobs’ (Code du Travail, Art. 23.13; D ́ecret No. 2018-272). While employment law is not binding in informal agriculture, it is indicative of this pervasive custom.

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