household data, 73 percent of these participating households in urban Djibouti fall within the bottom two quintiles of the asset index.

Based on our detailed time use data (not shown in Table 1), women devoted 50 percent of their time doing household chores and about 20 percent of their time caring for other household members in the 24-hour period prior to the baseline interview. Even with low levels of employment, they spend, on average **,** very little time in income-generating activities. Men, in contrast, spend half of their time in income-generating activities. Social activities within the neighborhood are important for both men and women, with men (women) spending 25 percent (16 percent) of their time (outside of personal care) socializing with neighbors and friends.

To capture the extent of women’s empowerment, we created two indices from questions related to decision making within the households. These questions touched on 10 areas related to spending: food; women/men/children’s clothes and personal items; and health consultations and medicines; education for sons; education for daughters; and taking out or repaying credit. The set of questions are drawn from the standard module administered in the Demographic Health Surveys. The first index measures whether the woman expressed her opinion the last time the household made this decision (“0” indicates “No” and “1” indicates “Yes” for each of the 10 areas). The second index captures whether the woman made the decision on her own the last time she made a decision in the given area (“0” indicates “No” and “1” indicates “Yes” for each of the 10 areas). For both indices, these 10 binary outcomes are summed and then normalized to 0. As to whether we might expect to see improvement in empowerment in this context, we were encouraged by Abdallah Ali et al.’s (2021) results showing that women’s access to microfinance results in a sense of increased empowerment among relatively more educated women in Djibouti. In other contexts, outside labor earnings have been shown to give women a sense of greater agency (Anderson & Eswaran, 2009, in Bangladesh, and Majlesi, 2016, in Mexico). Although it is important to also add that, in their review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies, Chang et al. (2020) conclude that little evidence exists that employment leads to greater empowerment or agency for women. This is also true in studies that look specifically at public works. Croke et al. (2024) find a short-run increase in women’s control over household resources from public works in the Arab Republic of Egypt, but a decline in control occurred both after the program ceased and two years later. The World Bank East Asia and Pacific Innovation Gender Lab (2020) find mixed results in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Leight and Mvukiyehe (2023) find an improvement in women’s empowerment in

> friend or relative to help provide food? The food insecurity index in Table 1 and Annex A Table 5 documents the number of affirmative responses to questions (2) through (6). The coping strategy index in Annex A Table 5 adjusts the food insecurity index by applying weights to the responses to questions (5) and (6) by a factor of 3 and 2, respectively. These measures are based on the U.S. Agency for International Development and CARE (2008).

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