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The Power of Persuasion: Causal Effects of Household Communication on Women’s Employment
Can women influence household decisions through effective communication when they lack decision rights? We conduct a field experiment in India to test whether a communication training for married women impacts female labour supply, an important decision households make and a frequent source of intra-household disagreement. The treatment shifted women’s communication styles towards the techniques taught in the training. We find positive effects on labour supply and earnings but, consistent with theory, only for women who were more interested than their husbands in the women working. These effects last at least one year post-treatment and represent a 53% increase in earnings over this period. Mechanisms analyses suggest the labour supply effects come from women changing their husbands’ references rather than shifts in bargaining power. A back-of-the-envelope calculation estimates this treatment to be highly cost-effective at raising female employment relative to public vocational training.
Written with Namrata Kala, MIT Sloan School of Management
drive.google.com/file/d/1LgQtwvTMExxf49YvnkgWugxhffJ2rqlF/view
Date:
12 November 2025, 12:30
Venue:
Skills Lab
Speaker:
Madeline McKelway (Dartmouth College)
Organising department:
Department of Economics
Organisers:
Niccolo Meriggi (University of Oxford),
Stefano Caria (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
suzanne.george@economics.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
CSAE Lunchtime Seminars
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Suzanne George,
Fiona Morsia,
Claire Goode
