Informing Mothers about the Benefits of Conversing with Infants: Experimental Evidence from Ghana

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dupas, Pascaline; Falezan, Camille; Jayachandran, Seema; Walsh, Mark
• 署名单位: Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Stanford University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230283
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 388-417
• 关键词: inference

摘要

We evaluate a low-cost intervention designed to boost parents' verbal engagement with infants, which tends to be limited in developing countries. In our randomized experiment, recent or expectant mothers watched a three-minute informational video and received a themed calendar. Six months later, treated mothers reported stronger belief in the benefits of verbal engagement, more frequent parent-infant conversation, and more advanced infant language skills. Treatment effects on objective measures of parent-child conversation frequency and infant skills were positive but insignificant. We find larger immediate treatment effects on objective parent-child conversation, suggesting potentially larger long-term effects had the behavior change stuck more.