often in low-skilled jobs, to receive transfers. Transfers from PWPs may induce different effects compared with those of unearned income from cash-transfers, since women take on a new role outside the household, which could challenge social and gender norms. When these programs place women in employment traditionally reserved for men, the participants may be more at risk of assault or harassment.

This evaluation of a PWP contributes to the existing literature on GBV and women’s economic opportunities in two ways. First, to our knowledge, this is the only study exploring the causal relationship between a workfare program and gender-based violence through a Randomized Controlled Trial. Second, the inclusion of domestic violence (physical or sexual) by a non-partner and violence (physical or sexual) outside the home along with the study of IPV (emotional, physical, sexual violence and controlling behavior) provides a broader analysis of GBV than is typically explored in economic empowerment studies. This consideration is important for women’s safety, particularly when employment programs may violate traditional gender norms in the public sphere. Our results of neither a positive nor negative impact on gender-based violence inside and outside the home have at least two policy implications. First, they suggest that PWPs can be used as a mechanism for increasing household income without imposing safety risks on participating women. Second, while some social protection instruments, such as cash transfers, can also serve as a policy tool for lowering IPV, we cannot make a similar case for PWPs. As complementary programming, such as behavioral change communication, increases the potential of cash transfers to reduce GBV (Roy et al. 2019), complimentary interventions may be needed for the PWPs to work as GBVreducing interventions.

2. Context: Gender-Based Violence in Lao PDR Lao PDR ranks at 113 of 162 countries on gender equality, according to the Gender Inequality Index (GII), produced by UNDP.<sup>3</sup> This rank is far behind some countries in Southeast Asia: Singapore (12), Malaysia (59), Vietnam (65) and Thailand (80), though other Southeast Asian countries have similar rank: the Philippines (104), Cambodia (117), Myanmar (118) and Indonesia (121). Despite this low ranking on gender equality, Lao PDR has relatively low rates of IPV, compared to a set of countries for which comparable data are available. The most recent source of nationally representative data on GBV in Lao PDR is the Lao National Survey on Women’s Health and Life Experiences, which uses the standardized World Health Organization methodology. The survey results suggest that 15.3% of ever-partnered women experience physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime. To contextualize this

> 3 The GII measures gender inequalities in three aspects of human development—reproductive health, empowerment and economic status. To do so, it aggregates 5 indicators: maternal mortality ratio, adolescent birth rates, proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females, proportion of females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education and labor force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older.

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