IZA Discussion Paper No. 10024 - How to Help Poor Informal Workers to Save a Bit - Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya

Sep 4, 2026

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Worldwide, the majority of workers hold jobs in the informal sector that lack access to social insurance programs. A field experiment in Kenya tested whether behavioral interventions and financial incentives can raise saving rates through a voluntary pension program for informal workers with low and irregular income. The study ran for six months with twelve conditions, comparing weekly text reminders and balance reporting against additional treatments including family-framed reminders, a tracking coin, and matched savings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages34

Reading Time1 h 26 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Interventions and experiment design

Findings and policy implications

IZA DP No. 10024 How to Help Poor Informal Workers to Save a Bit: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya Merve Akbas Dan Ariely David A. Robalino Michael Weber June 2016 D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor How to Help Poor Informal Workers to Save a Bit: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya Merve Akbas Aliya Analytics Dan Ariely Duke University David A. Robalino The World Bank and IZA Michael Weber The World Bank Discussion Paper No. 10024 June 2016 IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 E-mail: [iza@iza.org](iza@iza.org) Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10024 June 2016 ABSTRACT How to Help Poor Informal Workers to Save a Bit: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya 1 Worldwide, the majority of workers hold jobs in the informal sector that do not provide access to social insurance programs. We partnered with a savings product provider in Kenya to test the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate through a voluntary pension program for informal workers with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The control condition received weekly reminders and balance reporting via text messages. The treatment conditions received in addition one of the following interventions: (1) reminder text messages framed as if they came from the participant’s kid (2) a golden colored coin with numbers for each week of the trial, on which participants were asked to keep track of their weekly deposits (3) a match of weekly savings: The match was either 10% or 20% up to a certain amount per week. The match was either deposited at the end of each week or the highest possible match was deposited at the start of each week and was adjusted at the end. Among these interventions, by far the most effective was the coin: Those in the coin condition savedon average the highest amount and more than twice as those in the control condition. We hypothesize that being a tangible track-keeping object; the coin made subjects remember to save more often. Our results support the line of literature suggesting that saving decisions involve psychological aspects and that policy makers and product designers should take these influences into account. JEL Classification: G21, B49, D03 Keywords: savings, field experiment, behavioral economics Corresponding author: Merve Akbas Aliya Analytics 20 Marshall St. , Suite 102 South Norwalk CT 06854 USA [E-mail:](E-mail: merve@aliya.com)[ merve@aliya.com](E-mail: merve@aliya.com) 1 We thank the Trust Fund for En

FAQs

What was the main objective of the Kenya field experiment?

To test how behavioral interventions and financial incentives affect the saving rate of low- and irregular-income informal workers through a voluntary pension program.

Which treatments were compared against the control condition?

The control received weekly reminders and balance reporting via text messages; treatment added one of: kid-framed reminder texts, a tracking coin, or matched weekly savings with specified rates and deposit timing.

What intervention was most effective in increasing savings?

The coin condition produced the highest average savings and more than doubled savings relative to the control, supporting the idea that tangible tracking objects improve saving frequency.

Sep 4, 2026

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