"The Role of Salience and Memory in Fertility Decisions: Experimental Evidence" 2024, Population Research and Policy Review
Abstract
"The Role of Salience and Memory in Fertility Decisions: Experimental Evidence" 2024, Population Research and Policy Review
Abstract
Public policies use communication campaigns to affect individual behavior. We analyze how providing women with information on the beneficial effects of using formal childcare may affect their realized fertility. We argue that cues in the messages are particularly salient for mothers and women with fertility intensions, since they activate these women’s past memories. Hence, cues induce these women to create mental representations of future actions, such as realized fertility. We exploit a randomized survey experiment run in 2011, which provides information on the positive effects that attending daycare may have on the children’ future cognitive development. Using a follow-up survey run six-year later we show that the treatment increases realized fertility among mothers and women with declared fertility intentions, for whom the communication was more salient. Yet, the treatment did not affect the individual knowledge nor recall of the information provided in the message. Our results carry important policy implications: persuading individuals is difficult, but communication can be effective if salient.
“Addressing vaccine hesitancy: experimental evidence from nine high-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic”, 2023, British Medical Journal, Global Health, (with V. Pons, P. Profeta, M. McKee, D. Stuckler, M. Becher, S. Brouard, and M. Foucault)
Abstract
“Gender Differences in COVID-19 Attitudes and Behavior: Panel Evidence from 8 Countries”, 2020, PNAS, (with P. Profeta, V. Pons et al.)
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“The Politics of Aging and Retirement: Evidence from Swiss Referenda” 2020, Population Studies, (with P. Bello)
Abstract
Ageing threatens the financial sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems, since it increases the share of retirees to workers. An often-advocated policy response is to increase retirement age. Ironically, however, the political support for this policy may actually be hindered by population ageing. Using Swiss administrative voting data at municipal level from pension reform referenda (and individual survey data), we show in fact that individuals close to retirement tend to oppose policies that postpone retirement, whereas younger and older individuals are more favourable. The current process of population ageing and the associated increase in the size of the cohort of individuals close to retirement may partially explain why a pension reform that increased retirement age for women was approved in two referenda in 1995 and 1998, while a reform that proposed a similar increase in women’s retirement age was defeated in a 2017 referendum.
“Information and Women’s Intentions: Experimental Evidence About Child Care”, 2017, European Journal of Population, pp. 109–128 (with P. Profeta, C. Pronzato and F. Billari)
Abstract
We investigate the effect of providing information about the benefits to children of attending formal child care when women intend to use formal child care so they can work. We postulate that the reaction to the information differs across women according to their characteristics, specifically their level of education. We present a randomized experiment in which 700 Italian women of reproductive age with no children are exposed to positive information about formal child care through a text message or a video, while others are not. We find a positive effect on the intention to use formal child care and a negative effect on the intention to work. This average result hides important heterogeneities: the positive effect on formal child care use is driven by high-educated women, while the negative effect on work intention is found only among less-educated women. These findings may be explained by women’s education reflecting their work–family orientation, and their ability to afford formal child care.