For the vulnerable, even small shocks can have significant short- and long-term impacts. Beneficial shock-coping mechanisms are not widely available in sub-Saharan Africa. We test whether an individual precautionary savings intervention can reduce a shock-coping behavior common in sub-Saharan Africa that has negative spillovers: transactional sex. Among a set of vulnerable women, we randomly assigned an intervention that promoted savings in a mobile banking account labeled for goals and emergency expenses. We find that a majority of individuals adopt the mobile account and the intervention led to reductions in transactional sex as a shock-coping response, and a decrease in symptoms of sexually transmitted infections. Changes are sustained in the medium-term among sex workers, but not among other vulnerable women.

对于弱势群体来说，即使是很小的冲击也会产生重大的短期和长期影响。撒哈拉以南非洲地区并未广泛使用有益的冲击应对机制。我们测试了个人预防性储蓄干预是否可以减少撒哈拉以南非洲常见的具有负面溢出效应的应对冲击的行为：性交易。在一组弱势女性中，我们随机分配了一项干预措施，以促进在一个标有目标和紧急费用的移动银行账户中储蓄。我们发现，大多数人使用移动账户，作为应对冲击的反应，干预导致性交易减少，并减少了性传播感染的症状。中期而言，性工作者的变化是持续的，但其他弱势女性则不然。