IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rco/dpaper/474.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Breaking the Silence: Group Discussions, and the Adoption of Welfare-Improving Technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Castro

    (LMU Munich)

  • Clarissa Mang

    (LMU Munich)

Abstract

Social pressure and stigma can hinder the adoption of available technologies, especially in the context of sensitive health issues. We run a field experiment on the take-up of menstrual products in Bangladesh and test a discussion-based intervention in a work setting. We vary participation in group discussions designed to break the silence around menstruation, where colleagues share their personal experiences. We find positive effects on the willingness to pay for a known menstrual product (sanitary pads) and on the adoption of a new technology (anti-bacterial menstrual underwear). Our results show changes in restrictive social norms around purchasing the products and lower perceived stigma around menstruation in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Castro & Clarissa Mang, 2023. "Breaking the Silence: Group Discussions, and the Adoption of Welfare-Improving Technologies," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 474, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    • Handle: RePEc:rco:dpaper:474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/uploads/discussion_paper/474.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zoë Cullen & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2022. "How Much Does Your Boss Make? The Effects of Salary Comparisons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(3), pages 766-822.
    2. Robert Jensen & Emily Oster, 2009. "The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1057-1094.
    3. Lori Beaman & Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo & Rohini Pande & Petia Topalova, 2009. "Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1497-1540.
    4. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant, 2022. "Nudging with care: the risks and benefits of social information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 443-464, June.
    5. Diva Dhar & Tarun Jain & Seema Jayachandran, 2022. "Reshaping Adolescents' Gender Attitudes: Evidence from a School-Based Experiment in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 899-927, March.
    6. Supriya Garikipati & Camille Boudot, 2017. "To Pad or Not to Pad: Towards Better Sanitary Care for Women in Indian Slums," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 32-51, January.
    7. Oriana Bandiera & Niklas Buehren & Robin Burgess & Markus Goldstein & Selim Gulesci & Imran Rasul & Munshi Sulaiman, 2020. "Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 210-259, January.
    8. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2012. "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 1-31, October.
    9. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2015. "Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(9), pages 2757-2797, September.
    10. Nina Buchmann & Erica M. Field & Rachel Glennerster & Shahana Nazneen & Xiao Yu Wang, 2021. "A Signal to End Child Marriage: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh," NBER Working Papers 29052, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    12. Catherine Porter & Danila Serra, 2020. "Gender Differences in the Choice of Major: The Importance of Female Role Models," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 226-254, July.
    13. Colin Sumpter & Belen Torondel, 2013. "A Systematic Review of the Health and Social Effects of Menstrual Hygiene Management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, April.
    14. Dur, Robert & Fleming, Dimitry & van Garderen, Marten & van Lent, Max, 2021. "A social norm nudge to save more: A field experiment at a retail bank," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    15. Emily Oster & Rebecca Thornton, 2011. "Menstruation, Sanitary Products, and School Attendance: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 91-100, January.
    16. Leonardo Bursztyn & Alessandra L. González & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2020. "Misperceived Social Norms: Women Working Outside the Home in Saudi Arabia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 2997-3029, October.
    17. Krenz, Astrid & Strulik, Holger, 2019. "Menstruation hygiene management and work attendance in a developing country," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 364, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    18. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    19. Emily Lancsar & Denzil G. Fiebig & Arne Risa Hole, 2017. "Discrete Choice Experiments: A Guide to Model Specification, Estimation and Software," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 35(7), pages 697-716, July.
    20. Pulerwitz, J. & Hughes, L. & Mehta, M. & Kidanu, A. & Verani, F. & Tewolde, S., 2015. "Changing gender norms and reducing intimate partner violence: Results from a quasi-experimental intervention study with young men in Ethiopia," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105(1), pages 132-137.
    21. Silvia Castro & Kristina Czura, 2021. "Social Norms and Misinformation: Experimental Evidence on Learning about Menstrual Health Management in Rural Bangladesh," CESifo Working Paper Series 9081, CESifo.
    22. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    23. Arias, Eric, 2019. "How Does Media Influence Social Norms? Experimental Evidence on the Role of Common Knowledge," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 561-578, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mang, Clarissa & Castro, Silvia, 2023. "Breaking the Silence," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277639, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Assefa, Thomas W. & Magnan, Nicholas & McCullough, Ellen & McGavock, Tamara, 2022. "Stifled by Stigma? Experimental Effects of Updating Husbands’ Beliefs on Participation in Women’s Household Work," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322470, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2024. "Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," IFS Working Papers W24/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    4. d'Adda, Giovanna & Dufwenberg, Martin & Passarelli, Francesco & Tabellini, Guido, 2020. "Social norms with private values: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 288-304.
    5. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    6. Tabellini, Guido & d'Adda, Giovanna & Dufwenberg, Martin & Passarelli, Francesco, 2019. "Partial Norms," CEPR Discussion Papers 13593, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
      • Giovanna D'Adda & Martin Dufwenberg & Francesco Passarelli & Guido Tabellini, 2019. "Partial Norms," CESifo Working Paper Series 7568, CESifo.
      • Giovanna d’Adda & Martin Dufwenberg & Francesco Passarelli & Guido Tabellini, 2019. "Partial Norms," Working Papers 643, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    7. Silvia Castro & Kristina Czura, 2021. "Social Norms and Misinformation: Experimental Evidence on Learning about Menstrual Health Management in Rural Bangladesh," CESifo Working Paper Series 9081, CESifo.
    8. Donati,Dante & Orozco Olvera,Victor Hugo & Rao,Nandan Mark, 2022. "Using Social Media to Change Gender Norms : An Experiment within Facebook Messenger in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10199, The World Bank.
    9. Kristina Czura & Andreas Menzel & Martina Miotto, 2019. "Menstrual Health, Worker Productivity and Well-being among Female Bangladeshi Garment Workers," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp649, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Eugen Dimant & Tobias Gesche, 2021. "Nudging Enforcers: How Norm Perceptions and Motives for Lying Shape Sanctions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9385, CESifo.
    11. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2022. "Father of the bride, or steel magnolias? Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," IFS Working Papers W22/50, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    12. Castro, Silvia & Czura, Kristina, 2021. "Social Norms and Information in Menstrual Health Management," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242423, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Chen, Jingnan (Cecilia) & Fonseca, Miguel A. & Grimshaw, Shaun B., 2021. "When a nudge is (not) enough: Experiments on social information and incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Martínez Villarreal, Déborah & Díaz, Lina M. & Maldonado, Stanislao, 2023. "Nudging the Trendsetters: Increasing Second-dose HPV Vaccination in Bogota, Colombia," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13312, Inter-American Development Bank.
    15. Linek, Maximilian & Traxler, Christian, 2021. "Framing and social information nudges at Wikipedia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1269-1279.
    16. David Ehrlich & Nora Szech, 2022. "How To Start a Grassroots Movement," Papers 2209.01345, arXiv.org.
    17. Bolton, Gary & Dimant, Eugen & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2021. "Observability and social image: On the robustness and fragility of reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 946-964.
    18. Diva Dhar & Tarun Jain & Seema Jayachandran, 2022. "Reshaping Adolescents' Gender Attitudes: Evidence from a School-Based Experiment in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 899-927, March.
    19. Kandul, Serhiy & Lanz, Bruno, 2021. "Public good provision, in-group cooperation and out-group descriptive norms: A lab experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    20. Cullen, Claire & Joshi, Sarthak & Vecci, Joseph & Talbot-Jones, Julia, 2024. "Female Empowerment and Male Backlash: Experimental Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 17450, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social norms; social pressure; stigma; technology adoption; group discussions; menstrual health management; menstrual hygiene; adverse health behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rco:dpaper:474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Viviana Lalli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://rationality-and-competition.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.