The power to protect: Household bargaining and female condom use

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cassidy, Rachel; Bruinderink, Marije Groot; Janssens, Wendy; Morsink, Karlijn
• 署名单位: The World Bank; University of Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Utrecht University; University System of Georgia; Georgia State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102745
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Household bargaining; technology adoption; field experiment; hiv; GENDER

摘要

Women may face systematically greater benefits than men from adopting certain technologies, for example some health-improving technologies. Yet women often hold lower bargaining power, such that men's preferences may constrain household adoption in households containing men. Introducing a version of the technology that is less effective, but has lower perceived costs or higher perceived benefits to men, may increase adoption and household welfare compared to no adoption at all. This paper contributes the first explicit model and test of the trade-offs when introducing such an intermediate technology. We conduct a field experiment introducing female condoms - which are less effective than male condoms, but perceived by men as more pleasurable and less stigmatising - in an area with high HIV prevalence. We find strongest adoption of female condoms among women with lower bargaining power, who were previously having unprotected sex. We also observe an increase in the likelihood that women have sex.