Does self-reflection, professional skills, or cash lead to the highest socio-emotional and economic gains for women in Rwanda?

We randomly assign participants to one of three conditions. One third of participants are invited to attend Storytelling for Leadership (SfL), a two-day workshop that teaches leadership skills by teaching participants to self-reflect and develop a personal narrative. One third of participants are invited to attend a professional development (PD) workshop, which teaches participants skills including public speaking, networking, goal setting, and identifying new opportunities. The final third of participants are not invited to attend a workshop, but instead receive the per-participant cost of the workshop in cash, approximately USD 35.

2019-09-04

2019-10-01

Socio-emotional: self-advocacy, number of leadership positions currently held, connections within cooperatives, connections within the home and village, problem solving, effective communication.
Economic: estimated income, likelihood of working for money, marginal utility of expenditure.

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).

Socio-emotional: self-perceived social status, connection to workshop group, self-evaluation of value, resilience, self-perception as a leader, aspirations for the future.

We measure self-perceived social status in present, five years in the past, and five years in the past on a scale between one and ten. We examine four measures of changes in self-perceived social status between the baseline and follow-up surveys: (1) current self-perceived social status; (2) self-perceived social status five years from now; (3) difference between current measure and five years in the past; (4) difference between five years from now and five years in the past.

We measure how connected and together participants feel with one another using a six-point scale.

We have two measures eliciting self-value, both of which are on a five-point scale. We combine these into an index, equally weighting each measure.

We have two measures of resilience, both measured on a five-point scale. We combine these into an index, equally weighting each measure.

We ask how closely participants identify as being a leader on a six-point scale.

We have five measures of aspirations for the future. First, does the participant have a role model? Second, does the participant believe that they can ever be as successful as their role model? Third, conditional on answering yes to the second question, how long does the participant think it will take to be as successful as their role model? Fourth, does the participant have a goal they are working toward? Fifth, has the participant achieved the goal they stated for themselves at the start of the study? We estimate effects for all five dimensions separately.

We randomize 451 participants into one of three groups.

There are a total of 451 participants in our baseline survey. Our sample was selected by inviting all women between the ages of 25 and 60 who had previously participated in programs run by CARE in Nyagisozi and Cyahinda sectors of Nyaruguru district in Rwanda. In particular, these women are part of economic cooperatives that were initially set up by CARE. We survey all participants once at baseline, once immediately following the workshop (only for those women who participate in a workshop), once six months later, and once one year later.

Done in an office by a computer.

Individual participants.

No

451 women.

We will have 451 individuals observed in each of three survey rounds, plus 308 women observed in the post workshop survey.

154 in SfL, 155 in PD, 142 in the cash control group.