Working Paper: NBER ID: w28220
Authors: Nava Ashraf; Erica M. Field; Alessandra Voena; Roberta Ziparo
Abstract: Fertility decisions are often made by partners who may disagree. We develop a model in which conflicting interests prevent effective communication between spouses about the costs of child-bearing incurred by women. This mechanism is likely to further widen the spousal disagreement over fertility in environments where maternal health risk is high and imperfectly observed. We design an intervention to experimentally vary exposure to information about maternal health costs to either the husband or the wife among approximately 500 couples in Lusaka, Zambia. At baseline, husbands exhibit lower knowledge of maternal health risk compared to their wives. One year after the intervention, husbands significantly update their beliefs about maternal risk but only if the information is delivered directly to them, whereas wives update their beliefs about risk regardless of who in the household is treated. The intra-household asymmetry in information spillovers is strongest among men with more urgent demand for children. Households treated with information on maternal risk experience a sizable reduction in the probability of pregnancy - an effect which is strongest when the woman faces a higher risk of complications - but only when the information is delivered to wives rather than husbands is this decline in fertility accompanied by a significant reduction in transfers to the wife. These patterns are consistent with differences in initial beliefs and demand for children generating a barrier to credible communication between spouses.
Keywords: maternal mortality; fertility decisions; spousal differences; information asymmetry; family planning
JEL Codes: J11; J13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Husbands exhibit lower knowledge of maternal health risks (J12) | Information asymmetries exist within couples (D82) |
| Information asymmetries exist within couples (D82) | Affects fertility decisions (J13) |
| Husbands receive information directly (J12) | Husbands significantly update their beliefs about maternal risk (J12) |
| Wives update their beliefs regardless of information delivery (D83) | Directional flow of information from wives to husbands (J12) |
| Households treated with information on maternal risk (D19) | Substantial reduction in the probability of pregnancy (J13) |
| Reduction in probability of pregnancy (J13) | Significant decrease in transfers from husbands to wives (J12) |
| Initial beliefs and differing demands for children (J13) | Barriers to effective communication (L96) |
| Barriers to effective communication (L96) | Suboptimal fertility outcomes (J13) |
| Information asymmetries and barriers to credible communication (D83) | Significant determinants of household fertility decisions (J12) |