About This Project

It is estimated that up to 23% of schoolgirls miss school during their menstrual periods in Sierra Leone (Sommer et al, 2012). Lack of access to adequate and affordable menstrual hygiene products is one of the reasons for missing school. Through our field experiment in rural Sierra Leone, we will study the effects of providing reusable pads to school girls on objective outcomes (school attendance and participation) and subjective measures (competition and self-esteem).

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

In Sierra Leone, 20% of girls miss school because of menstruation and in Nepal and Afghanistan, 30% of girls miss school for the same reason (Sommer et al, 2012). In a study of 595 students in Ethiopia, 43% of surveyed students reported missing school during menstruation. Among that population, 39% reported they felt shame and were afraid of being teased by other students if they discovered they were menstruating (Tegagne and Sisay, 2014).

The returns of female education are high. An educated female has better opportunities in the labor market and are important catalysts for overall economic development (Duflo, 2012). Thus, missing school has severe negative consequences for girls outcomes.

What is the significance of this project?

The economic research on this topic is rather scarce, often with contradicting results. A 2009 study in Ghana provided menstrual pads to students for six months and found that attendance increased significantly: almost by 13% in rural areas and 98.4% of the girls reported that they were able to concentrate better in school (Scott et al, 2009). On the contrary, Oster and Thornton's (2011) study in urban Nepal reported little or no positive effect in support of the idea that menstrual product interventions might lead to increased school attendance. No one has tried to understand the effects of providing menstrual products to students in Sierra Leone. We expect the effect to be large and significant given previous qualitative studies on the prevalence of this problem.

What are the goals of the project?

The purpose of this study is to improve female development outcomes. Our hypothesis is that providing menstrual products to students will have a significant impact on school attainment, measured though self reported behavior and school records. We will also be conducting economic experiments to measure improvements in girls' self esteem, aspirations, confidence, and competitiveness. We will conduct a lab in the field experiment by randomly providing reusable menstrual pads to a group of 250 female students aged 13 - 20. To rigorously asses the causal impact of the intervention, a second group of 250 randomly selected girls of same ages will serve as our counterfactual. We will administer baseline and end line surveys to both groups.