1. Gender Analysis in Policy Research
2017 PEP Annual Conference
Nairobi, Kenya June 14, 2017
Dileni Gunewardena

2. Gender analysis in quantitative research: need for improvement and lessons from experience
How can we improve gender analysis in quantitative research using existing databases?
Lessons from good gender analysis and from missed opportunities for integrating gender analysis in research
What are key issues in gender and development and how do we frame those into research questions that can inform policy?

3. Continuum of gender inclusion in research
No inclusion – all household members are alike
Gender dummy – incorporates effect of being female (usually) but constrains effect to be the same as male
Sample separation – same research question but exploring how it applies to men and women separately
Address a critical gender related issue as a main research question and include it in the research design

4. Continuum of gender inclusion in research
No inclusion – all household members are alike
Gender dummy – incorporates effect of being female (usually) but constrains effect to be the same as male
Sample separation – same research question but exploring how it applies to men and women separately
Address a critical gender related issue as a main research question and include it in the research design

5. Some ways to think about gender in (quantitative) development research
Gender as diversity/heterogeneity
People are different, respond differently to incentives, face different constraints
Gender as a culture-specific construct, gender roles differ among societies, and gender identity is acquired – and operates at multiple levels [Definition from Caren Grown, Gender Issues in Development, American University, 2010]
How to include social norms in the model?
Gender bias operates at different levels
Gender as a category of conflict
Bargaining models

6. Caren Grown, Gender Issues in Development, American University, 2010

7. Some issues in gender and development
Gender bias in intra-household allocation of resources
Girls’ education issues
Adolescent girls’ health issues – with implications for child nutrition (next generation)
Gender bias in skill acquisition – within formal schooling, and OJT
Gender bias in the labour market
Gender wage gaps
Gender bias in hiring
Occupational choice and gender
Low female labour force participation – tradition or economics?
Preferences, influenced by cultural norms
Constraints – (relative) prices
Gender and entrepreneurship, access to credit
Unpaid work, care economy, time poverty

8. Gender identity is acquired and operates at multiple levels - e. g
Gender identity is acquired and operates at multiple levels - e.g. FLFP decision
This graphic conveys some of the complexity of the female labor force participation decision – the takeaway is that while a woman’s endowments affect the decision, so does her community – and markets and governments play a role as well – markets in how they value or reward those skills and governments in the kinds of policies they implement.
Source: Author

9. Analysing Intra-household wellbeing with existing data
Intra-household wellbeing – evidence of boy girl discrimination - data is a challenge – but there are some well-known examples of how to get around this
Deaton (1989) – outlay equivalent analysis – expenditure on adult goods like alcohol and tobacco decrease more for boys of a specific age compared with girls of the same age; conversely, spending on education greater in the presence of an additional boy vs. an additional girl
Jensen (2005) - fertility behaviour generates sex inequality – son preference differential stopping behaviour (SP-DSB) – if boys are preferred, girls will on average have more siblings - between one tenth to one-quarter of the large male-female differences in educational attainment in the various states can be accounted for by the differences in sibling cohort size.
Deaton, Angus, Looking for boy-girl discrimination in household expenditure data. World Bank Economic Review 3:1-15
Jensen, Robert, 2005.

10. Occupational choice and food insecurity
Does concern for household food security influence the choice of business among self-employed men and women in urban low-income households? (Floro and Swain, 2012)
Endogenous switching probit regression
Self-employed women in households with money shortage (proxying higher risk of food insecurity) tend to engage in food enterprise activities – men tend not to

11. Microenterprises and returns to capital
Average return to capital 5.7% per month, but ?9% for men, and zero % for women
The authors explore different explanations for the lower returns among female owners, and find no evidence that the gender gap is explained by differences in ability, risk aversion, or entrepreneurial attitudes.
Differential access to unpaid family labor and social constraints limiting sales to local areas are not important.
However, there is evidence that women invested grants differently from men. A smaller share of the smaller grants remained in the female owned enterprises, and men were more likely to spend the grant on working capital and women on equipment.
The gender gap is largest when male-dominated sectors are compared with female- dominated sectors, although female returns are lower than male returns even for females working in the same industries as men.
[De Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff, 2008]

12. Integrating gender using existing databases
National databases – LFS, HIES – household rosters have a lot of intra-household information
International databases
World Bank Integrated Surveys on Agriculture – LSMS-ISA – 5 countries?
standardized individual-level disaggregated data on asset ownership, including ownership, management and control of agricultural plots and livestock, as well as other assets and access to credit (Grown 2014)
The Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE) initiative
developing methodologies and guidelines for collecting individual level information on physical and financial assets and entrepreneurship and piloting experimental work in 12 countries through 2015.
The Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database – 148 countries since 2011
measures how adults – spanning basic socioeconomic levels, gender, as well as urban/rural settings – save and manage their finances, and cope with access issues.
Skills toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) – 14 countries
Cognitive skills and noncognitive skills (socioemotional, personality/behavioural traits), technical skills
Demographic and Health Surveys
DHS – can address a variety of questions, and have a lot of woman-specific data – fertility, etc.
Databases needed
Countries need support to implement time use surveys and conduct them on a regular basis, either as stand- alone surveys or as part of multi-purpose household surveys (Grown 2014)