Measuring gender attitudes using list experiments

Abstract

We elicit adolescent girls’ attitudes towards intimate partner violence and child marriage using purposefully collected data from rural Bangladesh. Alongside direct survey questions, we conduct list experiments to elicit true preferences for intimate partner violence and marriage before age 18. Responses to direct survey questions suggest that very few adolescent girls in the study accept the practises of intimate partner violence and child marriage (5% and 2%). However, our list experiments reveal significantly higher support for both intimate partner violence and child marriage (at 30% and 24%). We further investigate how numerous variables relate to preferences for egalitarian gender norms in rural Bangladesh.

Helping Families Help Themselves: ∗ the (Un)Intended Impacts of a Digital Parenting Program

“…We provide suggestive evidence that the intervention had a greater negative impact on the mental health of male caregivers who live in more economically deprived households and who cohabitate with a partner. These results align with the literature that connects economic deprivation with increased cognitive load (Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013;Mani et al, 2013;Asadullah et al, 2021;Schilbach et al, 2016;Ridley et al, 2020). In other words, the intervention may have cognitively overloaded caregivers burdened by economic deprivation and, therefore, been a source of additional stress.…”

“…Second, we substantiate the unlikelihood that our results are due to experimenter demand. Following Asadullah et al (2021) and Dhar et al 9 Haushofer et al (2020) also show that a brief and in-person psychotherapy intervention had no impacts on women. In contrast, Bryant et al (2017) demonstrate that the mental health of victims of gender-based violence improved after an intensive in-person psychotherapy intervention.…”

The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on physical domestic violence: Evidence from a list randomization experiment

“…For example, Bulte and Lensink (2019) and Cullen (2020) show evidence from Vietnam, Nigeria and Rwanda that LEs substantially increase reports of intimate partner violence. Similarly, Asadullah, De Cao, Khatoon, and Siddique (2020) and Gibson et al (2020) show that, compared to direct survey questions, LEs are more likely to elicit truthful attitudes towards intimate partner violence. In Peru, Agüero and Frisancho (2021) find that there are no significant differences in direct versus indirect reporting of physical violence on average, although they do find that more educated respondents underreport when using direct questions.…”

Pro-Girl Attitudes and Childhood Stunting in India

“… 6. A study by Asadullah et al (2021) shows that survey responses systematically underestimate women’s attitudes due to social desirability bias. This might cause a high rate of reported egalitarian attitude than revealing mothers’ true preferences. …”