The power to protect: Household bargaining and female condom use

Rachel Cassidy; Marije Groot Bruinderink; Wendy Janssens; Karlijn Morsink

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102745

The power to protect: Household bargaining and female condom use

Rachel Cassidy, Marije Groot Bruinderink, Wendy Janssens, Karlijn Morsink

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Article number	102745
Pages (from-to)	1-17
Journal	Journal of Development Economics
Volume	153
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102745
Publication status	Published - Nov 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Dan Anderberg, Nava Ashraf, Martin Browning, Erwin Bulte, James Fenske, Glenn Harrison, Eline Korenromp, Emily Oster, Simon Quinn and Chris Woodruff for very helpful comments. We also thank audiences at seminars and conferences including NEUDC, the Royal Economic Society, the Royal Econometric Society, ECBE, and EUDN. We are grateful to Lene Boehnke and Emilie Berkhout for excellent research assistance, and to Balthazar Chilundo from Eduardo Mondlane University, Pathfinder, Oxfam Novib, and WeConsult for research support. This research was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) WOTRO Science for Global Development (grant no. W 07.40.203) and the Universal Access to Female Condoms (UAFC) Joint Programme (grant no. A-02974-02-01/506671). IRB approval was granted by the Research Ethics Committee of the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, the Comit? Institucional de Bio?tica em Sa?de da Faculdade de Medicina/Hospital Central de Maputo, Mozambique.

Funding Information:
We thank Dan Anderberg, Nava Ashraf, Martin Browning, Erwin Bulte, James Fenske, Glenn Harrison, Eline Korenromp, Emily Oster, Simon Quinn and Chris Woodruff for very helpful comments. We also thank audiences at seminars and conferences including NEUDC, the Royal Economic Society, the Royal Econometric Society, ECBE, and EUDN. We are grateful to Lene Boehnke and Emilie Berkhout for excellent research assistance, and to Balthazar Chilundo from Eduardo Mondlane University, Pathfinder, Oxfam Novib, and WeConsult for research support. This research was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) WOTRO Science for Global Development (grant no. W 07.40.203 ) and the Universal Access to Female Condoms (UAFC) Joint Programme (grant no. A-02974-02-01/506671 ). IRB approval was granted by the Research Ethics Committee of the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, the Comité Institucional de Bioética em Saúde da Faculdade de Medicina/Hospital Central de Maputo, Mozambique.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors

Keywords

Field experiment
Gender
HIV
Household bargaining
Technology adoption

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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1-s2.0-S0304387821001127-mainFinal published version, 1.5 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "The power to protect: Household bargaining and female condom use",

abstract = "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{\textquoteright}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.",

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doi = "10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102745",

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AU - Cassidy, Rachel

AU - Groot Bruinderink, Marije

AU - Janssens, Wendy

AU - Morsink, Karlijn

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The power to protect: Household bargaining and female condom use

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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