EDI WORKING PAPER SERIES WP/2022 - A SEAT AT THE TABLE: THE

We cross-randomized whether (a) the household is exposed to an information treatment making salient the benefits of adding the wife’s name to the title as joint owner of the land; (b) the land title offer is made conditional on the wife’s name being added to the title; and (c) the intervention is targeted to both spouses versus husbands alone. [...] We find that when the intervention was targeted solely to husbands, only half chose to add the wife’s name on the title as a joint owner of the land, while essentially the other half chose to put only their name on the title as the sole owner of the land (only 5% rejected the land title offer). [...] In villages assigned to the gender information treatment, the husband/couple received additional information on the benefits of joint titling at two points: during the discussion with the FO and during the screening of the video. [...] First, immediately after sharing information on the benefits of land titles and the legal implications of joint titling (as in control communities), the FO informs the husband/couple of ways in which joint titling can benefit the household, including: the enhanced incentives for both spouses to invest in and benefit from the land; the greater security of tenure for the wife (and her children) shou. [...] The implementation of the cash transfer involved three steps: 1) Mobilization of the local council chairpersons over the phone, informing them of the study context, the intervention, and timelines of the activity.