Women’s use of family planning services: An experiment on the husband’s involvement
通过在坦桑尼亚农村进行实验，研究发现丈夫参与决策过程会增加夫妻选择计划生育服务的可能性，尤其是当妻子错误地认为丈夫反对避孕时。
Despite the increased availability of family planning services (FPS) in low-income countries, their use remains low, especially in rural sub-Saharan Africa. To investigate to what extent this is explained by the husband’s involvement in the decision process, we use an experiment in rural Tanzania in which couples choose between two payments, one being conditional on attending a family planning meeting at a health center. Experimentally varying the husband’s involvement, we find that FPS are more likely chosen in treatments that involve the husband. Exploring potential mechanisms, we show that this is driven by couples where the wife (incorrectly) believes that the husband disapproves of contraceptives. We also find that involving the husband increases the wife’s expectation that the family planning meeting will be attended. Both findings suggest that initiating communication between spouses could reduce demand constraints.