Does it Matter What Others Think? Information, Norms, and Female Genital Mutilation in Ethiopia
Written with: Matthew Gichohi (CMI), Mette Løvgren (OsloMet), Charlotte Ringdal (CMI) and Espen Villanger (CMI)

In baseline interviews with over 3000 parents in Ethiopia, we find that current and planned FGM rates remain high even among parents who believe FGM should be stopped. We find strong indications in the baseline data that high rates of FGM are driven by perceptions and misperceptions of social norms. Inspired by this, we designed an intervention randomly informing respondents about actual opposition to FGM in nearby communities. We do not find that this intervention changed attitudes or beliefs, but we do observe effects on other preregistered outcomes. These effects are particularly striking among men: When men are informed that men in adjacent communities are more against FGM, we find a 22 percent decline in their intentions to subject their own daughters to FGM. For women, the intervention had no significant effect on their intentions or attitudes towards FGM.
Date: 20 November 2024, 12:30
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Seminar Room G (third floor)
Speaker: Andreas Kotsadam (The Frisch Centre)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Organisers: Niccolo Meriggi (University of Oxford), Dennis Egger (University of Oxford), Rocco Zizzamia (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: suzanne.george@economics.ox.ac.uk
Part of: CSAE Lunchtime Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editors: Suzanne George, Fiona Morsia, Claire Goode