Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We have four measures of self-advocacy. Participants rate on a five-point frequency scale the statements “I ask others to support me”, “I seek out new opportunities”, and “I ask others to connect me to new opportunities.” We also ask, “Suppose you learn about a job that pays RWF 1000 more each day than you currently earn. It is not guaranteed that you will get the job, and it will cost you 2 days wages if you apply. How inclined would you be to apply for the job?” This question is on a four-point scale. We combine all four measures into an equally weighted index to estimate changes.
We have five measures of connection with others in the cooperative: people are likely to come to me for advice, I help others, I have people with whom I feel completely secure, there are people who will stand by me during difficult times, and people know a lot about me. We measure all five outcomes on a five-point frequency scale (almost never true, true less than half the time, true about half the time, true more than half the time, almost always true). We will combine these outcomes into an index, equally weighting each measure, to estimate changes in how connected women feel with others in their cooperative.
We elicit the same five measures of connection with others in participants’ homes and villages as we elicit for others in participants’ cooperatives. Again, we will combine these outcomes into an index.
We have two measures of problem solving, both measured on a five-point scale. We combine these into an index, equally weighting each measure.
We have six measures of effective communication that we combine into an index. Participants rate the following five statements on a five-point frequency scale: I make suggestions to others, if I have a problem or a new idea that would affect or benefit my community I raise it to others in my community, people understand me when I make a suggestion for how to accomplish a task, people understand me when I give them feedback, and people understand what I am saying when I ask them to do something. We also ask whether participants have spoken up in a group situation where they did not know everyone present in the past two weeks.
We ask for an estimate of income earned by the participant over the past month. If a participant cannot provide an estimate, we provide intervals of RWF 5,000 and ask the participant to choose the one that seems closest to what they think they earned. In the case that a participant chooses an interval, we will use the midpoint of the interval as the estimate of income.
We ask participants to describe their current work situation and code one for participants who are working in any form, including an apprenticeship, and zero otherwise.
We calculate each participant’s marginal utility of expenditure using information about household composition and consumption expenditures on a set of eighteen food items following Ligon (2017).