This study examines the potential moderating role of child gender in the association between ECD outcomes and selected risk and protective factors. The factors studied here are those for which there is prior evidence of direct effects on ECD outcomes in Pakistan (Hentschel et al., 2023). Specifically, this study focuses on children from two age cohorts: ages 0-35 months and 36-72 months. It examines the extent to which child gender moderates the associations of parental distress (risk factor), psychosocial stimulation (protective factor) and enrollment in ECE (protective factor) with ECD outcomes. This study seeks to address the following research questions:

1. How does the distribution of key risk and protective factors and relevant demographics vary by child gender for children aged 0-35 months and 36-72 months?

2. Are the relationships between risk and protective factors and early child development outcomes moderated by child gender for children aged 0-35 months and 36-72 months?

Given the dearth of evidence surrounding this topic in the Pakistani context, this study is exploratory in nature and aims to inform future investigations of early influences of child gender on ECD in Pakistan.

# **Methods**

## **Procedure**

This paper uses data from a nationally representative phone survey in Pakistan conducted by Gallup Pakistan from December 2021 to February 2022.<sup>1</sup> Data were collected by phone due to health protocol restrictions in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included caregivers with at least one child aged 72 months or younger. For each participant, one focal child was selected. Focal child selection was stratified according to child gender (ensuring a 1:1 ratio of boys to girls) and age (ensuring a 1:1 ratio of 0-35-month-olds to 36-72-month-olds). Participants were identified using random digit dialing (RDD) of mobile phones, drawing on Pakistan’s four telecom providers with active numbers. Interviewers made up to three calls to reach individuals identified through RDD. Upon accepting the invitation to participate, individuals were administered a screening questionnaire, followed by the full survey. Interviewers recorded all answers on a tablet using Survey CTO. Post-stratified weighting was applied to ensure the sample was generalizable to the national population. Weights were created using strata for province and region (urban/rural). A detailed overview of study procedures was previously published (Hentschel et al., 2023).

## **Analytic sample**

In total, 3,907 individuals were contacted, of whom 448 declined to participate, 438 completed the interview in-part, and 3,021 completed the interview in full. The final representative sample of households across four provinces included 2,852 participants from Punjab (n=1,301), Sindh (n=425), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (n=903), and Balochistan (n=223), comprising 1,366 caregivers of children aged 0-35 months and 1,486 caregivers of children aged 36-72 months.<sup>2</sup>

## **Missing data**

> 1 All authors previously received certification in protecting human subjects in research, and survey protocols/procedures followed relevant local rules and protocols.

> 2 Some observations were dropped as they were not geographically representative.

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