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Women’s Decision Making-Uganda

Women's Decision Making-Yemen is a 6-item measure of the decision making power that a woman has within her own household. It asks women who in their family has the final say on decisions regarding different domains, and then enquires about disagreements and potential resolutions with respect to the said decisions. This measure has also been validated for use in Ecuador and Yemen.

Categories

Geographies Tested: Uganda

Populations Included: Female

Age Range: Adolescents, Adults

Items:

1. Who in your family usually has the final say on the decision:

Domains:

  • About if you should work to earn money or not?
  • About the education of your children?
  • About the health of your children?
  • About your own health?
  • About daily small purchases (food, toiletries, etc.)?
  • About large purchases (furniture, TV,, etc.)?
  • About whether or not to use contraceptivesbirth control to prevent pregnancy?

Response Options:
Respondent - 1
Husband - 2
Someone else - 3
Respondent and husband jointly - 4
Respondent and someone else jointly - 5
Decision not made not applicable - 98

2. In the last year, has there been a disagreement about this type of decision?

Response Options:
Yes - 1
No - 2

3. When the disagreement was resolved, whose opinion was taken as the final say?

Response Options:
Respondent - 1
Husband - 2
Someone else - 3
Disagreement ongoing - 4
Compromise - 5
Decision not made not applicable - 99

4. Looking back on the last year, would you say that your personal decision making power in [domain] has increased, decreased or stayed the same?

Response Options:
Increased - 1
Decreased - 2
Stayed the same - 3

Scoring Procedures

Four different measures can be constructed, using raw summations over the number of domains in which (1) the woman is the sole decisionmaker, (2) the woman is a sole or joint decisionmaker, (3) the woman is the ultimate sole decisionmaker after a dispute/disagreement (actual or hypothetical), and (4) the woman’s ideal decisionmaker aligns with the actual decisionmaker.

Original Citation

Peterman, A., Schwab, B., Roy, S., Hidrobo, M., & Gilligan, D. O. (2021). Measuring women’s decisionmaking: Indicator choice and survey design experiments from cash and food transfer evaluations in Ecuador, Uganda and Yemen. World Development, 141, 105387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105387


Psychometric Score

Ease of Use Score

Scoring breakdown

Formative Research

Qualitative Research

Existing Literature/Theoretical Framework

Field Expert Input

Cognitive Interviews / Pilot Testing

Reliability

Internal

Test-retest

Interrater

Validity

Content

Face

Criterion (gold-standard)

Construct

KEY

Ease of Use

Readability

Scoring Clarity

Length

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