Labour Economics (2024)
How does exposure to soap operas with LGBTQ+ characters affect attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community? To answer this question, we construct a novel database of 175 Telenovelas (soap operas) with LGBTQ+ characters airing in 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2002 and 2019. Exploiting variation in the introduction of new soap operas with LGBTQ+ characters within country and survey-waves, we find that individuals exposed to more soap operas with LGBTQ+ characters are less tolerant toward the LGBTQ+ community. This short-term backlash is driven by shows with comedic storylines. The effect is stronger among traditionally more conservative individuals (e.g. older or frequently attending religious services).
Journal of Public Economics 186 (2020)
Media: IADB Blogs
This paper analyzes the effect on teacher mobility of a program that rewards excellence in teaching practices in Chile. Successful applicants receive a 6 percent annual wage increase for up to 10 years and an award that publicly recognizes their excellence. The paper uses a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effect of the public merit award. The program does not alter transitions out of teaching. However, it increases the mobility of awardees within the school system. This is consistent with the program providing a credible public signal of teacher quality.
Labour Economics (2020)
This paper studies the role social interactions at the workplace play in the decision to apply for a professional recognition program. In Chile, teachers can apply to a pedagogical excellence award. Successful applicants receive a wage increase and are publicly recognized. We exploit the quasi-random variation in the allocation of awards generated by a sharp assignment rule. We document that the success of an applicant increases her school colleagues' application rate to the program by almost 75 percent. The impact is higher for colleagues with closer interaction with a successful applicant. We speculate on social learning as a driver of this result.
American Journal of Epidemiology 181 (2015)
Hypertension is a leading risk factor in the global disease burden. Limited hypertension awareness is a major determinant of widespread gaps in hypertension treatment and control, especially in developing countries. We analyzed data on persons aged 50 years or older from 6 low- and middle-income countries participating in the first wave (2007–2010) of the World Health Organization’s Survey of Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE). Our estimates suggest that just 1 year of routine opportunistic hypertension screening during formal visits to medical-care providers could yield significant increases in hypertension awareness among seniors in the developing world. We also show that eliminating missed opportunities for hypertension screening in medical settings would not necessarily exacerbate existing socioeconomic differences in hypertension awareness, despite requiring at least occasional contact with a formal health-care provider for obtaining a hypertension diagnosis. Thus, routine opportunistic screening for hypertension in formal medical settings may provide a simple but reliable way to increase hypertension awareness. Moreover, the proposed approach has the added advantage of leveraging existing resources and infrastructures, as well as facilitating a direct transition from the point of diagnosis to subsequent expert counseling and clinical care for newly identified hypertension patients.
Media: VoxDev, UNICEF, Development Impact World Bank Blog
School-related gender-based violence (GBV) is pervasive, yet little is known about how to address it or its consequences for education in contexts with low accountability for perpetrators and limited agency among victims. We evaluate a large scale randomized intervention in Mozambique that combined teacher training with student-focused sessions to strengthen school personnel’s capacity to address GBV and to increase students’ awareness and reporting of such incidents. To examine differential effects by degree of agency, the student training was randomly targeted to girls, boys, or both. The intervention substantially reduced sexual violence perpetrated by teachers against girls in all treated schools. Using administrative records, we find that when girls received the student training their school enrollment increased. Our evidence shows that these gains were driven by greater willingness of victims to report abuse. Administrative data from the national child helpline shows a rise in GBV-related calls and investigations. These findings highlight that reducingschool-related GBV and improving girls’ education requires a dual strategy: deterring potential perpetrators through strengthened accountability and empowering victims to report.
This paper presents experimental evidence on how intimate partner violence experienced by women in ultra-poor households responds to anti-poverty programs via mechanisms of intra-household bargaining, poverty stress alleviation, or backlash. To do so, we leverage the exogenous variation induced by the random allocation of a multi-faceted anti-poverty program in rural Malawi between the female and the male spouse. Within female-targeted households, the program also randomly allocated a couple's training aimed at promoting equal gender norms and household cooperation. The program's unique features, combined with the high prevalence of violence, traditional gender norms, and high divorce and remarriage rates of women in Malawi, allow us to conduct a horse race between the three mechanisms. Our results show an overall reduction of violence of between 5.6 and 7 percentage points equal across all treatment arms. We interpret these findings as suggestive evidence that the key mechanism through which anti-poverty programs contribute to the reduction in violence is poverty stress alleviation.
This paper studies the effects of seasonal migration incentives on intimate partner violence. There are at least three reasons why migration may have consequences for violence among the ultra-poor. First, migration induces a positive income shock that lessens poverty-stressors and, with it, violence. Second, the extra-income associated with the migration of the male spouse increases his bargaining power and lessens woman's say in the household decisions. Third, when the man migrates, the woman spends less time with her potential perpetrator and faces a lower risk of victimization. To address the net effect of migration on violence, we collected data on intimate partner violence among the female respondents of the No Lean Season intervention 2017 program-year endline survey. Our results indicate that 77% of these women have experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner during their lifetime, and almost one in every two has been physically or sexually abused by her partner in the last six months. Our analysis suggests that migration reduces violence. As such, women of households receiving interest-free migration loans are less likely to experience physical or sexual violence. Violence, however, is higher in villages that did not receive the migration incentive but are surrounded by villages that did receive it. We hypothesize this increase is explained by the fact that, when the male spouse is less likely to migrate, the woman spends more time with the perpetrator of violence. The evidence we provide is in line with exposure reduction theory and suggests that seasonal migration has the potential to improve well-being by providing women with periods of reduced violence throughout the year.
Many countries around the world have programs that provide transfers to women with the aim of promoting gender empowerment. It is implicitly assumed that additional economic resources unambiguously increase women's bargaining power. However, it is also possible that men react to threats to their bargaining power through violence. In this paper, I study how intimate partner violence responds to transfers to the women, and whether the response depends on the transfer being in-kind or in-cash. To this end, I develop and estimate a model of household in which the spouses maximizes a weighted sum of their utility and the weights are endogenously determined through violence. Only men can inflict violence to increase their relative weight, but violence comes at the cost of destroying female labor productivity. Under this framework, the utility gains the husband can appropriate through violence are lower when the transfers are in-kind. As a result, in-kind and cash transfers have different effects. I estimate the model using data from a randomized controlled trial providing transfers to poor families in Ecuador, either in-kind or cash. The results indicate that, on average, violence destroys 4% of female productivity with a market value of 10 USD a month. Violence also reduces the female relative weight in the overall household utility by 12%. A cash transfer equivalent to 10% of the average household income reduces the prevalence of violence from 17% to 10%. However, if the same transfer were in-kind, violence would decline by 3 additional percentage points. This differential effect amplifies with the size of the transfer.
Banco Interamericano de Desarollo. Nota técnica No. IDB-TN-01885
En América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) existe un conocimiento limitado sobre el tamaño de la población lesbiana, gay, bisexual, transgénero/transexual, queer7, más otras orientaciones sexuales e identidades de género diversas (LGBTQ) y de sus experiencias de discriminación. Esta nota técnica recopila y analiza estudios realizados sobre orientación sexual e identidad de género (OSIG), y presenta información relevante sobre la exclusión social que sufren las personas LGBTQ, a la vez que identifica mejores prácticas para futuras iniciativas. Para esto, se analizaron 68 trabajos basados en encuestas realizadas en ALC que evidencian las brechas de información sobre poblaciones LGBTQ en la región y proporcionan datos sobre el tamaño de dichas poblaciones y sus experiencias de discriminación. Igualmente, se analizaron 25 estudios y encuestas de fuera de ALC, que presentan buenas prácticas para recopilar información sobre las poblaciones LGBTQ. Finalmente, a partir del análisis realizado,esta nota técnica proporciona recomendaciones para futuras encuestas y estudios sobre el tema, centrándose especialmente en el diseño muestral y en el enfoque adecuado para la formulación de preguntas sobre OSIG.