Social Norms and Information in Menstrual Health Management

Konferenzbeitrag

Inadequate hygiene during menstruation can have severe consequences, such as adverse health effects, lower educational attainment and higher work absenteeism. Cultural taboos and social norms surrounding menstruation may be responsible for misinformation on menstrual hygiene and may also prevent attempts to improve knowledge. Using lab-in-the-field experiments with women in rural Bangladesh, we measure social norms in the form of empirical and normative expectations on menstrual health and hygiene explicitly and relate them to behavior and knowledge. We provide an information intervention on menstrual health and hygiene and observe how this changes the perceived social norms. We find that the majority of women report decreased physical and mental well-being, in particular stress and shame, during their menstruation. Further, we find knowledge gaps on the proper use of hygienic material for menstrual health management and that reported adverse health behavior is well reflected in empirical and normative expectations. The information intervention helps to correct harmful social norms, although results are more pronounced for women who have more autonomy and agency over their own decisions.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2021: Climate Economics

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health Behavior ; Health and Economic Development ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
• Subject: Social norms ; menstrual health management ; menstrual hygiene ; information,adverse health behavior

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Castro, Silvia ; Czura, Kristina
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/242423
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET