Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.

Assorting on gender is casually observed in developing countries and is now systematically built into many group-oriented development interventions. In this paper we explore the mechanisms underlying the emergent gender assorting, using an experiment in which African villagers could form groups to s...

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Main Authors: Barr, A, Dekker, M, Fafchamps, M
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2012
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author Barr, A
Dekker, M
Fafchamps, M
author_facet Barr, A
Dekker, M
Fafchamps, M
author_sort Barr, A
collection OXFORD
description Assorting on gender is casually observed in developing countries and is now systematically built into many group-oriented development interventions. In this paper we explore the mechanisms underlying the emergent gender assorting, using an experiment in which African villagers could form groups to share risk. We exogenously varied the extent to which grouping arrangements were enforced and, hence, the importance of trust and social enforcement as supports for group formation. Gender assorting was significant and considerable when grouping was perfectly enforced or depended on social enforcement. There was significantly less gender assorting when grouping depended on trust. Exploratory analysis suggests that this reduction in gender assorting may be owing to family ties and co-memberships in gender-mixed religions.
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spelling oxford-uuid:0d0823f6-f905-45e5-a139-bfde6d32025e2022-03-26T09:38:25ZBridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:0d0823f6-f905-45e5-a139-bfde6d32025eEnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsElsevier2012Barr, ADekker, MFafchamps, MAssorting on gender is casually observed in developing countries and is now systematically built into many group-oriented development interventions. In this paper we explore the mechanisms underlying the emergent gender assorting, using an experiment in which African villagers could form groups to share risk. We exogenously varied the extent to which grouping arrangements were enforced and, hence, the importance of trust and social enforcement as supports for group formation. Gender assorting was significant and considerable when grouping was perfectly enforced or depended on social enforcement. There was significantly less gender assorting when grouping depended on trust. Exploratory analysis suggests that this reduction in gender assorting may be owing to family ties and co-memberships in gender-mixed religions.
spellingShingle Barr, A
Dekker, M
Fafchamps, M
Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title_full Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title_fullStr Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title_full_unstemmed Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title_short Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages.
title_sort bridging the gender divide an experimental analysis of group formation in african villages
work_keys_str_mv AT barra bridgingthegenderdivideanexperimentalanalysisofgroupformationinafricanvillages
AT dekkerm bridgingthegenderdivideanexperimentalanalysisofgroupformationinafricanvillages
AT fafchampsm bridgingthegenderdivideanexperimentalanalysisofgroupformationinafricanvillages