Adoption of Improved Cook Stoves and Women's Decision-making Empowerment in Rural Benin

The ongoing use of inefficient cook stoves in rural Benin imposes time and health burdens on women, constraining their labor market participation. This situation prevents the attainment of gender and related labor market outcomes. The introduction of improved cook stoves (ICS) is an important initiative that can improve the productivity of the time that women allocate to unpaid household production. We assume that the time saved by using an ICS is allocated to wage work that, in turn, improves women’s decision-making empowerment within their households. This aspect of development programs is often neglected in program evaluations. Acknowledging this gap, our research project aims to assess the causal effect of the adoption of an ICS on women's labor market participation  and their decision-making empowerment in the household. A randomized control trial (RCT) and decision-making modeling process will be applied to obtain the study's expected results.