Marinella Leone, University of Pavia

"Nudging Parental Investments in Early Childhood: Experimental Evidence from a Video Intervention in Rwanda"

Abstract

This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomised intervention designed to change parental time investments in early childhood. We designed and screened two videos delivering messages centred around the role of parenting and the importance of being confident parents for child development. The second video included positive feedback messages directed at parents that participated to an ECD parenting training program three years before. The provision of positive feedback messages improved parental time investment by 0.2SD. Both treatments improved some indicators of child well-being, material investments and indicators of perceived social support within the community. They did not affect parental self-efficacy and other psychological grounded indicators. These results suggest that a low-cost and light-touch video intervention can be effective in changing parental behaviours.

Joint with P. Justino, P. Rolla, M. Abimpaye, R. Germond, S. Malik and D. Uwamahoro

Contact person: Neda Trifkovic