Seminar
Wendy Janssens: The Power to Protect. Household Bargaining and Female Condom Use
Women may have a higher willingness than men to adopt technologies that increase household welfare. If adoption of a technology must be agreed upon by both partners, then women with low bargaining power may struggle to convince their partner to adopt. Introducing a version of the technology which is more acceptable to men, even if it is slightly less effective, may therefore improve adoption and welfare when women have low bargaining power.
Male condoms are a key example of a technology with chronic under-adoption. Female condoms may offer lower disutility to men than male condoms, although at the cost of marginally lower efficacy. We conduct an experiment in an area of Mozambique with high HIV prevalence, to test whether women adopt female condoms when given basic information and access. We find strong take-up among women with low household bargaining power. The findings have implications for policies to combat HIV/AIDS and other STIs, and more broadly for promoting technologies to improve household welfare.