Health Information, Treatment, and Worker Productivity : Experimental Evidence from Malaria Testing and Treatment among Nigerian Sugarcane Cutters
Agricultural and other physically demanding sectors are important sources of growth in developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and choice of job tasks among workers by reducing ph...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/11/20421868/health-information-treatment-worker-productivity-experimental-evidence-malaria-testing-treatment-among-nigerian-sugarcane-cutters http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20645 |
| Summary: | Agricultural and other physically
demanding sectors are important sources of growth in
developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria
adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and choice
of job tasks among workers by reducing physical capacity.
This study identifies the impact of malaria on worker
earnings, labor supply, and daily productivity by
randomizing the temporal order at which piece-rate workers
at a large sugarcane plantation in Nigeria are offered
malaria testing and treatment. The results indicate a
significant and substantial intent to treat effect of the
intervention -- the offer of a workplace-based malaria
testing and treatment program increases worker earnings by
approximately 10 percent over the weeks following the offer.
The study further investigates the effect of health
information by contrasting program effects by workers'
revealed health status. For workers who test positive for
malaria, the treatment of illness increases labor supply,
leading to higher earnings. For workers who test negative,
and especially for those workers most likely to be surprised
by the healthy diagnosis, the health information also leads
to increased earnings via increased productivity. Possible
mechanisms for this response include selection into higher
return tasks within the plantation as a result of changes in
the perceived cost of effort. A model of the worker labor
decision that allows health expectations partly to determine
the supply of effort suggests that, in endemic settings with
poor quality health services, inaccurate health perceptions
may lead workers to suboptimal labor allocation decisions.
The results underline the importance of medical treatment,
but also of access to improved information about one's
health status, as the absence of either may lead workers to
deliver lower effort in lower return jobs. |
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