Coupling Labor Supply Decisions: An Experiment in India

Joint household decision-making may be prevented by the incentives of individuals to withhold information or avoid bargaining. We study whether these barriers to joint decision-making keep female labor force participation low in India. In partnership with one of India’s largest carpet producers, we offered a weaving job to 495 married women. We randomized whether job information and a ticket enabling enrollment were given to the wife or to the husband, and cross-randomized the non-ticketed spouse to one of three information sets. With no information, the ticketed spouse could plausibly deny the existence of the job ticket to prevent enrollment. With information, the non-ticketed spouse was also informed about the job opportunity. With discussion, both spouses were given three minutes to discuss the job opportunity together. Our motivating model predicts that both information and discussion should raise enrollment, and nearly all intra-household experts we surveyed gave the same qualitative predictions. In reality, information had no effect on enrollment, and discussion reduced enrollment by as much as 50%. We sketch an alternative model in which interventions that make household decision-making more joint give both spouses veto power and reduce enrollment. Supporting this model, the negative effects on enrollment are driven by couples that disagree about the appropriateness of women working as weavers.