One of the projects conducted by Annika and her research colleagues focuses on female genital cutting. Female genital cutting, or FGC, which is the term used internationally, is prohibited in most African countries. Some countries still permit the practice, and the Gambian parliament has even voted in favour of reinstating the right to subject girls to FGC.

“Female genital cutting has negative health consequences and offers no physical or biological benefits. As economists, we are interested in how formal and informal institutions emerge, persist and change,” Annika says.

 

One explanation for why FGC continues to be practised is social interdependence. Having a daughter undergo FGC may make it easier for her to marry and for the entire family to be socially accepted within their community. Another explanation is that it is practised because it has “always been done in the family”.

 

Social interdependence plays an important role

“In one of our studies, we are developing methods that allow us to investigate the role of social interdependence on a large scale. We apply these methods using data from several African countries. We have examined whether families are more likely to subject their daughters to FGC when many others do so, precisely because ‘everyone else’ does it and it is therefore expected. We have found that social interdependence is important, but that its significance varies considerably between countries where FGC is common,” Annika says.

 

In another study, the research group has examined how the practice is transmitted from one generation to the next.

 

“When we examine women whose families originate from different parts of Africa but who now live in the same place, we find a strong influence from the prevalence of FGC in their ancestral homelands. If we compare mothers who grew up in different places but now live in the same location, we see that the prevalence of FGC in the place where a mother grew up also has a major impact on whether she has her daughter undergo FGC,” Annika says.

 

Christian missionaries made a difference

“Another research project began when we read about early Christian missionaries, including missionaries from the United Kingdom, who campaigned against female genital cutting, particularly in Kenya. At times, they encountered considerable resistance, and many people in the local community left the church because of its opposition to the practice,” Annika explains.

 

The research group therefore studied the long-term effects of early Christian missions that actively campaigned against female genital cutting in the early 20th century. The results showed that women who today live near early mission churches were less likely to have undergone FGC. FGC was also less common among women whose ancestors had lived in areas with a greater number of missions. Extensive campaigns can therefore have long-term effects on social norms and behaviour.

 

Economic incentives can be effective

Another way of trying to influence social norms is through economic incentives. Cash transfers, for example, have been highly successful in increasing school attendance among children around the world. In India, there are around a hundred different cash transfer programmes aimed at improving the situation of girls.

 

“Another interesting project we have conducted concerns economic incentives in India,” Annika says. “In Haryana in northern India, where child marriage has been common, girls who remain unmarried when they turn 18 have received a lump-sum payment from a fund. We have used a model to examine how strong social norms affect the impact of the cash transfer. In the control group, 65% of 18-year-olds were unmarried.

 

“With the payment from the fund, this figure appears to increase by 7 percentage points. Among caste groups with strong social norms, 58% of 18-year-olds were unmarried, and the payment from the fund increased this figure by around 17 percentage points.

 

“Our initial assumption was that economic incentives would probably be less effective when trying to influence behaviour governed by social norms. The reason is that people lose the social reward if they change their behaviour. However, we show that there are cases in which economic incentives can actually be more effective when social norms are strong. This is because people may follow a social norm even though they would privately prefer not to do so. The economic incentive can then be what enables people to follow their own preferences rather than the social norm,” Annika says.

 

A broader way of analysing the world

“In the projects for which we have received grants from Ragnar Söderberg foundation, I conduct research together with Ann-Sofie Isaksson and Heather Congdon Fors. Heather also works at the Department of Economics at the University of Gothenburg, while Ann-Sofie works at the Institute for Futures Studies. We use methods and tools from economics and draw on information from a range of different datasets. By combining different types of data, such as geographical data, historical sources, data on development aid projects and household surveys covering areas such as marriage and early fertility, we are able to produce our results,” Annika concludes.

 

Annika Lindskog and Heather Congdon Fors received a research project grant in economic sciences in 2018.