Resistance and backlash

Improving women’s decision-making power is crucial for advancing gender equality. Understanding individuals’ participation in decision-making within their households involves understanding what occurs, or what they fear might occur, when they try to participate in these decisions. For example, they might face some type of economic or physical punishment. These potential negative consequences may be particularly acute for women. This module aims to capture whether respondents face consequences, positive or negative, because of their participation in decisions inside the household, as well as what they think would happen if they participated in those decisions that they are not currently participating in. Understanding such consequences can be used to inform interventions that aim to increase women’s decision-making power within the household, as well as theories of changes within broader initiatives to increase women’s agency. Other variables that you may want to collect alongside this measure include marital status, age, women’s engagement in any income-generating activities, and additional measures of agency or influence in decision-making (e.g., MAGNET’s Preferences over Decision-making tool).

Link to: tool content and guidelines, CTO file, and statistical annex

Duration: This tool takes on average 4.71 minutes to be implemented.

Permitted use of the tool: all users are free to use the tool with citation: “MAGNET (2023). Resistance and Backlash. https://magnet.ifpri.info/resistance-and-backlash/”

Tool sample

1. Do you take part in decision making aroundlarge household purchases?
   • Yes
   • No (Skip to 3)

For those involved in decisions

2. What type of consequences do you face for participating in this decision regarding large household purchases?

• I face economic consequences
• I am physically threatened
• I am made fun of, insulted, shamed
• I am not allowed to participate in future decisions
• I am trusted more in making future decisions
• Other (specify: ___)

For those not involved in decisions

3. Would you face any consequences for participating in this decision regarding large household purchases? This could be positive or negative consequences.

1. 1. Yes
   2. No (skip to next activity)

Measurement properties 

• Geographies Tested: Kenya, India
• Populations included: Female
• Age range: Adults

For details on these testing metrics, visit our scoring methodology page.