MAGNET is launching household surveys

The MAGNET initiative is launching household surveys in India and Uganda to test new tools for measuring agency developed by the initiative over past two years. In India, the survey will include interviews with approximately 1,700 men and women respondents from rural and urban households within the Bengaluru, Mysore, and Udupi districts of Karnataka. In Uganda, the survey will interview 2,200 men and women respondents from rural and urban households within the Kayunga and Mukono districts. Both surveys will be conducted in late 2023. Examples of the tools to be tested in these surveys include: (i) vignettes to help understand joint decisionmaking, (ii) open-ended questions capturing women’s perceptions of decisionmaking; (iii) an automatic cognition test designed to capture respondents’ internalized beliefs about occupational gender norms; and (iv) survey modules capturing persuasion behaviors, resistance and backlash, and critical consciousness regarding household decisionmaking, work outside the household, and political participation. The data from these surveys will be used to assess the internal reliability and construct validity of the tools, as well as to study women’s agency within the sample populations. In addition, the surveys will collect information on enumerators’ background and attitudes to better understand how enumerator characteristics relate to measured outcomes. Findings from the surveys will be shared on the MAGNET Resource Center, and the data will be made publicly available according to IFPRI and World Bank guidelines.