Long-run Impacts of the Northern Uganda Literacy Project, with Victoria Brown, Julie Buhl-Wiggers, Jason Kerwin, and Jeffrey Smith
The project builds upon a randomized evaluation of an early grade literacy program in Northern Uganda. The evaluation involved 128 schools and studied a teacher training and support program for mother-tongue literacy in grades one through three. After four years of the program, we found massive effects of the program: Grade 4 pupils tested in 2017 after being exposed to the program in grades 1-3 scored 0.92 standard deviations higher in mother tongue reading – equivalent to 6.3 grade levels – more than the control students. While it was impressive that such large gains were possible, at the end of 2017, only 52% of our study respondents were found during school visits, with no differential attrition across study arms – in other words, despite the unprecedented learning gains from the program, there was no positive impact on keeping children in school suggesting that outside factors – such as barriers and marginalization – rather than learning, play an important role in education transitions. This study will extend the NULP longitudinal data by interviewing a sub-sample of children and their parents/caregivers as they transition into adolescence.
This study addresses the following new questions:
- How do children and parents/guardians plan for, and navigate challenges to, successful school and life transitions and how does early grade literacy help this navigation and transitions?
- What are the causal effects of solid foundations in early grade literacy on learning, life skills, and school and life transitions?
- What are the factors that, in a resource-poor environment, affect children’s ability to harness the potential returns of early literacy skills?
A Meta-Analysis of Heterogeneity in Education Program Impacts, with Julie Buhl-Wiggers, Hanna Han, Jason Kerwin, Juan S. Muñoz, and Jeffrey Smith
The Affordable Care Act, Breastfeeding, and Women’s Labor Force Participation, with Mark Borgschulte and Alok Ranjan.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided a number of provisions to support breastfeeding. In March, 2010, Section 4207 of the ACA went into effect, requiring that employers provide “reasonable break time” and “a place, other than a bathroom” for employees to express breast milk up to one year after a child’s birth. Section 2713, required that health insurance plans issued after August 1, 2012 cover breastfeeding supplies and support services. Our study will examine the impact of the ACA breastfeeding provisions on women. Our specific aims are to examine:
- Direct Effects on Mothers: How did the ACA breastfeeding provisions affect the labor supply of mothers, including employment, the timing of return to work, occupation changes, and hours of work?
- Heterogeneity and Mechanisms: How did the employment effects differ based on the affected groups’ characteristics, such as first-time mothers, and by their employment status in the year before childbirth? How do effects differ when we control for eligibility for public programs (i.e. WIC or Medicaid)? How do the effects on labor outcomes covary with the effects on breastfeeding?
- Indirect Effect on Non-Mothers: Did women without infants experience changes in their labor market opportunities? Did fertility itself respond to the lower cost of breastfeeding infants at work?
Pregnancy Tests and Family Planning Take-up, with Maureen Babine, Akito Kamei, and Ryoko Sato.
This study aims to understand the impact of increasing women’s access to home pregnancy tests on reproductive health care seeking. In this study we focus on non-pregnant women and subsequent effects of access to pregnancy tests. The main research questions are:
- Beliefs: How do women form their beliefs about their pregnancy status, risk of pregnancy and how do these beliefs correlate with behaviors related to contraceptive adoption among non-pregnant women?
- Effects of access to pregnancy tests: What are the effects of resolving uncertainty through home pregnancy tests on beliefs and reproductive behaviors including FP uptake, psychological well-being, and contraceptive continuation?
- Demand/Value of pregnancy tests: What is take-up of free pregnancy tests and if the test is distributed for free, at what point in time in the month (in relationship to their menstrual cycle or sexual behavior) do women most value using it if they are distributed for free? Does willingness to pay for these tests vary by prior experience with pregnancy tests and key characteristics such as age and number of previous
pregnancies?
Understanding School-Based Violence Networks in Ghana, with Sarah Kabay
Migration and Family Planning Response in Nepal, with Dirgha Ghimire and Akito Kamei