The Effect of the Narrator’s Gender on the Rates of Engagement by UCAT Farmers
UGA -20 -1411Last modified on November 6th, 2025 at 6:47 pm
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Abstract
PxD is partnering with Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) and TechnoServe (TNS) on the Uganda Coffee Agronomy Training (UCAT) program to provide a complementary digital service by reinforcing recommendations of Good Agricultural Practices via automated calls to subsets of coffee farmers.
We tested whether the gender of the narrator for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) agronomy messages affected farmer engagement. In one group the narrator's gender was switched to match that of the farmer’s, while in a second group the narrator's gender was switched to the opposite of the farmer’s. Overall, both male and female farmers increased engagement when switching from a male to female narrator, but not when switching from a female to male narrator. Our analysis also suggests—although only tentatively—that women presented a stronger response than men. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q4 Oct 2020
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End date
Q4 Dec 2020
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Experiment Location
Uganda
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Partner Organization
UCAT , IFPRI
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Agricultural season
Short Rains
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
Coffee farmers in the UCAT study receiving digital advice
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Sample size
4,002
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Outcome type
Service engagement
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Mode of data collection
PxD administrative data
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Research question(s)
Does the gender of the narrator of IVR push calls affect platform engagement (i.e., pick-up and completion rates)?
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Research theme
Message narration
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Research Design
To determine the effect of matching the narrator’s gender to that of the user on the rates of push-call pick-up and completion, we used content recordings of both male and female narrators in four languages, and randomly assigned users to the following three groups:
- Control (n = 2,002): No change in the narrator’s voice gender
- Treatment 1 (T1, n = 854): Switch IVR recording voice from not matching to matching the user’s gender
- Treatment 2 (T2, n = 1,146): Switch IVR recording voice from matching to not matching the user’s gender
The sample included 4,002 farmers in total (1,576 female and 2,426 male participants). Randomization was stratified by gender to ensure balanced representation across conditions. For the control group, the gender of the narrator’s voice remained the same before and after the introduction of the intervention. Each treatment group received weekly IVR content tailored to different implementer (HRNS or TNS) categories. T1 changed the narrator’s voice to match the gender of the user. Female (male) farmers who previously received IVR content voiced by a male (female) narrator began receiving content voiced by a female (male) narrator. T2 changed the narrator’s voice to no longer match the gender of the user. The matching or mismatching of the narrator’s and user’s genders allowed us to study the impact of the perceived expertise and/or socio-cultural dynamics on the outcomes of interest.
The content was delivered in four different languages—English, Luganda, Runyankore, and Rutooro—using both male and female narrators. Farmers could call back and still access the advice for free if they missed the initial calls or wished to listen to previous messages. The duration of the experiment was eight weeks, after which the narrator’s gender was no longer based on the user’s gender.
- Control (n = 2,002): No change in the narrator’s voice gender
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Results
Switching from a male to a female narrator of the message content increased the probability that female farmers picked up advisory calls, by 2.6 percentage points (pp) relative to a control mean of 71%. This switch had no significant effect on male farmers.
Switching from a male to a female narrator increased the completion rate—defined as the likelihood of listening to at least 90% of the message—of male farmers by 3.1 pp (control mean: 69%) and of female farmers by 1.2 pp (control mean: 66%). The effect on male farmers diminished over time, whereas the effect on female farmers was sustained.
Two caveats apply to using these insights in future service design work. First, the short-term nature of these effects may limit the potential for such a change to generate long-term improvements in farmer engagement. Second, because only two narrators of each gender were used for each language in the recordings, we cannot rule out the possibility that these results reflect a “narrator effect” rather than a true gender effect.