# **Appendix B:** Detailed description of construction of outcome variables

This appendix provides additional detail on the full set of outcomes presented in the tables in the main text, as well as those in this supplementary online appendix. Additional detail can also be found in the pre-analysis plan described in Appendix A and found at <u>https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/36</u> or in the survey instruments which can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/decrgberkozler/datasets.

Our outcomes cover six domains for the core respondent – education and competencies, marriage and fertility, health and sexual behavior, empowerment and aspirations, employment and wages, and consumption – as well as outcomes in these domains for their husbands and children. We briefly summarize these in the text below, and then provide full detail of each in Appendix Table B1.

_Education and Competencies._ The primary outcomes we examine for education are highest grade completed (self-reported) and the overall competencies score. Secondary outcomes include the highest qualification obtained which are separated into the Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLC), Junior Certificate of Education (JCE) and the Malawi Secondary Certificate of Education (MSCE). We also present the components of the competencies index and the total time taken to complete these tests.

_Marriage and Fertility._ Our primary outcomes include self-reported data on whether or not the core respondent was ever married or ever pregnant. We also examine age at first marriage and at first birth,<sup>36</sup> as well as total live births. Desired fertility is a secondary outcome.

_Health._ Our primary health outcomes are HIV and anemia prevalence, both measured using biological data. Additional secondary outcomes include psychological wellbeing measured with the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12), and the number of meals eaten in the last week that contained, meat, fish, or eggs.

_Sexual behavior._ All outcomes in the sexual behavior domain are secondary and selfreported. On the extensive margin, our sexual behavior outcomes include whether the core respondent has ever had sex, her number of lifetime sexual partners, and whether she was sexually active during the past 12 months. On the intensive margin, we look at the core respondent’s age at first sex, whether she had a sexual partner five or more years older, and her condom use during her most recent sexual intercourse.

_Empowerment and Aspirations._ Our primary measures of empowerment include an indicator of changes in life satisfaction and a super index of overall empowerment. This super-index of empowerment includes sub-indices (all secondary outcomes) that measure self-esteem, preferences for children’s education, an index of social participation, and aspirations. We also construct super indices of empowerment separately for the married and unmarried sub-samples, as well as a super index of economic control within marriage for the married sub-sample. These three indices are also primary outcomes.

_Employment and Wages._ In this domain, we examine the proportion of hours spent in selfemployment or paid work, the typical wage rate for work done in the past three months, and the opportunity cost of time which is constructed by asking the core respondents a series of hypothetical questions regarding whether they would accept employment at a given wage rate. Secondary outcomes include whether the core respondent participated in any wage work in the

> 36 Our pre-analysis plan suggested we would use a hazard model. We instead simply use OLS to examine age at first marriage and age at first birth in the intensive margin.

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