From Insights to Impact: Leveraging Behavioural Science to Strengthen Labour and Social Protection
Chair(s): Claire Elizabeth Hobden (ILO, Switzerland)
Laws and policies play a critical role in shaping fair, safe, and decent working conditions. However, their effectiveness often depends on how individuals, businesses, and institutions interpret and respond to them in practice. Indeed, while barriers relating to a lack of resources or institutional capacity of public authorities like labour inspectorates certainly contribute to a lack of compliance, other barriers that are more firmly rooted in behaviours, practices and social norms also play a substantial influence on the relative effectiveness of laws and policies. Labour and social security laws and regulations can, for example, can be difficult to understand and comply with, particularly for workers and economic units in the informal economy. In other cases, social norms related to informality may predominate in a certain region, economy or sector, both in the global North and South. Labour inspectorates and other public authorities are not always equipped to address these barriers, which require going beyond the traditional “carrots and sticks” to promote compliance.
In light of these challenges, behavioural science has proven to be a valuable tool to generate insights into human behaviour, offering strategies to promote compliance, encourage formalization, and tackle violence and harassment. Governments around the world are increasingly turning to behavioural science for that reason. Moreover, in 2021, the UN Secretary-General identified behavioural science as one of five levers of change that were essential to ensure that the UN was able to accelerate progress to the SDGs and meet the challenges of the future. By understanding cognitive biases, social norms, and structural barriers, policymakers can design interventions that align the implementation of labour and social security laws with the realities of human behaviour, making these more impactful and sustainable. When applied through experimentation, the impact of behavioural interventions is also measurable, allowing policy-makers to evaluate their interventions and adapt them as necessary.
As such, this panel will examine the application of behavioural science to labour law and policy, with a focus on advancing decent work. The discussion will highlight three key areas: tackling violence and harassment and discrimination in the world of work; promoting fair recruitment of migrant workers; and promoting formal employment, with a focus on registration to social security. Each presentation will showcase real-world examples where behavioural interventions have been carried out and evaluated to improve outcomes and drive meaningful change.
The first presentation will review experimental evidence of interventions to address violence and harassment and discrimination in the world of work. While legal frameworks exist to prevent and respond to unacceptable behaviours that cause harm, underreporting, fear of retaliation, and discriminatory norms often undermine their effectiveness. By understanding the social and psychological dynamics that underpin violence and harassment and discrimination, interventions can be designed to foster safer environments and ensure accountability. This presentation will highlight successful initiatives that have applied behavioural principles to combat these issues.
The second presentation will explore how behavioural experiments have been used to inform the design of campaigns to promote fair recruitment of migrant domestic workers. In some countries, household members must hire domestic workers through employment agencies. Yet, private employment and recruitment agencies are often inadequately regulated, and their practices sometimes expose domestic workers to risks of forced labour. When household employers select agencies, there is little to no information as to their recruitment practices, making it difficult for them to exercise due diligence. This presentation will share findings from a behavioural experiment to encourage household employers to seek information that may help them in selecting fair recruitment agencies.
The third presentation will share comparative evidence on the behavioural determinants of formalizing domestic work. The ILO estimates that domestic workers are twice as likely as other workers to be informally employed. Many domestic workers may not fully understand their rights or the benefits of participating in social security systems. Likewise, employers may fail to meet their obligations due to complexity, social norms, or competing financial priorities. The presentation will share evidence from behavioural diagnostics across countries that have been used to inform policy interventions to simplify registration and contribution procedures, improve communication, and leverage social norms, as a means of increasing registration to social security.
Together, these presentations will illustrate how behavioural science can make labour and social security laws more effective. Attendees will gain practical insights into how behavioural interventions can support legal implementation, leading to more effective protection. The session will conclude with a discussion on the broader implications of integrating behavioural science into labour governance. By bringing together experts in behavioural science, labour law, and policy implementation, this panel will provide valuable perspectives on how to enhance compliance, promote formalization, and tackle workplace violence and harassment. The session aims to inspire policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to adopt evidence-based approaches that translate legal principles into tangible improvements in the world of work.
Presentations of the Special Session
Tackling Violence, Harassment, and Discrimination in the World of Work: Experimental Evidence from Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia
Enrique Fatas1, Lina Restrepo-Plaza1, Paulius Yamin-Slotkus2
1Universidad Europea de Valencia, 2Paris Institute for Advanced Study and London School of Economics
This presentation will focus on violence and harassment in the world of work, which ILO Convention 190 of 2019 defines as a range of unacceptable behaviours and practices that are likely to result in physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm. Legislation and policies are important to combat this phenomenon, but they are often not enough to ensure compliance. Rather, we need to understand and address the multiple factors that determine and motivate behaviour. Drawing from diagnostic and experimental evidence around discrimination, violence, and gender-based harassment in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and other countries, the authors will illustrate how behavioural science tools can provide ILO and its partners with practical and evidence-based insights to identify, understand and transform these unacceptable behaviours and practices.
Using Behavioral Insights to Facilitate Due Diligence Actions by Employers of Domestic Workers in Hong Kong
Mario Herberz
University of Geneva
Despite existing policies, violations of domestic workers’ rights through illegal practices of employment agencies persist in Hong Kong. While employers’ agency choices are critical, the drivers of these choices remain poorly understood, and the potential of behavioral interventions to improve them has not been explored. Here we employed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with two randomized online experiments, to examine the impact of message frames and an immersive web experience on employers’ adoption of due diligence actions during domestic worker recruitment and employment. Results showed that message frames emphasizing protection from deceitful and illegal agency practices, along with positive social norms, increased employers’ likelihood of thoroughly inquiring about agencies. The immersive experience increased intentions to demonstrate due diligence, leading to more frequent checks of online reviews and agency licenses at a 6-month follow-up. The findings highlight the potential of behavioral insights and interventions to protect worker rights in contexts where policy enforcement is challenging.
Applying Behavioural Science to Promote Registration to Social Security among Domestic Workers: Comparative Evidence Across Countries
Lucia Freira1, Claire Hobden2
1Universidad Tortuaco di Tella, 2ILO
The ILO estimates that domestic worker are twice as likely to be informally employed as other workers. While about one third of these are informal due to gaps in labour and social security laws, virtually domestic workers in informal employment are affected in some way by gaps in implementation. While governments, employers and workers have taken important measures to close legal gaps, efforts to promote legal implementation are increasingly relying on evidence derived from diagnostics of the behavioural determinants of social security registration. This presentation will share results of such diagnostics, using experimental methods, across multiple countries, with a focus on Argentina and Costa Rica. It will highlight the key insights as to the determinants of social security registration among both domestic workers and household employers.
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