Gendered Misallocation of Labor: Evidence From Malawian Farmers

NCT ID: NCT06631768

Last Updated: 2025-09-16

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 989 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2025-08-16
• Study Completion Date: 2025-09-07

Brief Summary

The investigators will conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial across districts in Malawi to evaluate the effect of providing free casual labor to pregnant farmers and female farmers on agricultural output, maternal and child health outcomes, child development, and social networks.

Detailed Description

This will be a cluster randomized control trial (RCT), where 75 of the districts in which One Acre Fund (1AF) currently operates within in Malawi will be randomly selected for inclusion in this study. Of these 75 districts, 38 will be randomly selected to implement the intervention. The intervention constitutes a voucher offered to all female famers who are currently enrolled in the 1AF program who are pregnant and/or have a child ages 1 years and below that entitles the recipient to a set number of days of labor from casual workers employed by local 1AF offices. The remaining 37 districts will serve as the control group.

Data will be collected at baseline during the planting season and endline at the conclusion of the harvest season. Data collected will pertain to agricultural output, individual and household demographics, obstetric history and outcomes, mental health, maternal health, child health and development, and social networks.

Conditions

Maternal and Child Health Outcomes

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: OTHER
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Treatment arm with casual labor voucher program

Eligible members (pregnant and/or mother of at least one child aged 1 years or younger) of 1AF in the randomly selected treatment districts receive vouchers for a set number of days of free work from casual laborers employed by local 1AF offices. This is in addition to standard 1AF programming.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Casual labor subsidy

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligible participants will be offered a voucher that can be redeemed for a set number of days of agricultural labor from casual laborers hired by local One Acre Fund offices. Casual laborers receive standard training in line with the trainings currently offered by the organization to participating farmers.

Control arm

Eligible members will only receive standard 1AF programming in randomly selected control districts. They will not receive the labor subsidy during the study period.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Casual labor subsidy

Eligible participants will be offered a voucher that can be redeemed for a set number of days of agricultural labor from casual laborers hired by local One Acre Fund offices. Casual laborers receive standard training in line with the trainings currently offered by the organization to participating farmers.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Pregnant at time of One Acre Fund program rollout
• Mother to at least one child aged below 1 years of age

Exclusion Criteria

-None

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: FEMALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Nicholas Rahim

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Nicholas Rahim

PhD student in the Department of Global Health and Population

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Gabriella Fleischman

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Harvard Kennedy School

Nicholas Rahim

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

Locations

One Acre Fund

Zomba, Zomba, Malawi

Countries

Malawi

Other Identifiers

IRB24-1234

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id