metadata: authors: 0: author: Brar,Rajdev Kaur
1: author: Buehren,Niklas
2: author: Papineni,Sreelakshmi
3: author: Sulaiman,Munshi
count: Somalia
docna: 0: docna: Rebel with a Cause : Effects of a Gender
            Norms Intervention for Adolescents in Somalia
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
theme: Human Development and Gender,Gender
abstracts: cdata!: Gender inequality and restrictive norms
            are often reinforced and internalized during adolescence,
            influencing pivotal life choices. This paper presents
            results from a randomly-assigned gender norms intervention
            for young adolescents in Somalia that led to greater support
            for gender equality in reported attitudes among both girls
            and boys. In a novel lab-in-the-field experiment designed to
            observe social group dynamics, treated adolescents were also
            found to be less likely to succumb to peer pressure to
            conform when stating their gender attitudes in public.
            Perceptions of gender norms appears to shift for boys,
            leading to a greater public expression of gender egalitarian
            ideals. Furthermore, the findings show improved adolescent
            mental health, increased caring behavior towards siblings of
            the opposite sex, and a higher likelihood of involvement in
            household chores by boys. A complementary gender norms
            intervention for parents had limited marginal impact on the
            attitudes and behaviors of adolescents. The results suggest
            that gender norms interventions can be effective in
            influencing the attitudes and public discourse around gender
            equality, even in early adolescence.
display_title: Rebel with a Cause : Effects of a
            Gender Norms Intervention for Adolescents in Somalia
listing_relative_url: /research/2023/09/34161369/rebel-cause-effects-gender-norms-intervention-adolescents-somalia
topicv3: Gender and Youth m1326452 934,Education Access and Equity m1327050 2127,Gender m1327621 615,Social Norms and Poverty m1503846 3751
publishtoextweb_dt: 2023-09-13T00:00:00Z
dois: 10.1596/1813-9450-10567
origu: Off of Sr VP Dev Econ/Chief Econ (DECVP)
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1630479
1: author_key: 1176301
2: author_key: 1343136
3: author_key: 1114462
model_extractions: Policy Research Working Paper 10567

# Rebel with a Cause

Effects of a Gender Norms Intervention for Adolescents in Somalia _Rajdev Brar Niklas Buehren Sreelakshmi Papineni Munshi Sulaiman_ Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab September 2023
Policy Research Working Paper 10567

# **Abstract**

Gender inequality and restrictive norms are often reinforced and internalized during adolescence, influencing pivotal life choices. This paper presents results from a randomly-assigned gender norms intervention for young adolescents in Somalia that led to greater support for gender equality in reported attitudes among both girls and boys. In a novel lab-in-the-field experiment designed to observe social group dynamics, treated adolescents were also found to be less likely to succumb to peer pressure to conform when stating their gender attitudes in public. Perceptions of gender norms appears to shift for boys, leading to a greater public expression of gender egalitarian ideals. Furthermore, the findings show improved adolescent mental health, increased caring behavior towards siblings of the opposite sex, and a higher likelihood of involvement in household chores by boys. A complementary gender norms intervention for parents had limited marginal impact on the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents. The results suggest that gender norms interventions can be effective in influencing the attitudes and public discourse around gender equality, even in early adolescence.

This paper is a product of the Gender Innovation Lab, Africa Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted atspapineni@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# Rebel with a Cause: Effects of a Gender Norms Intervention for Adolescents in Somalia<sup>∗</sup>

Rajdev Brar<sup>†</sup> Niklas Buehren<sup>‡</sup> Sreelakshmi Papineni<sup>§</sup> Munshi Sulaiman<sup>¶</sup> Impact evaluation, adolescents, gender, norms, conformity, Somalia [JEL] D63, D91, J13, J16, O12 ∗We thank Rachael Pierotti, Estelle Koussoub ́e, C ́eline Zipfel, Verena Phipps, Shubha Chakravarty, Jeannie Annan, Dave Evans, Richmond Atta-Ankomah and several seminar participants for excellent comments and suggestions. We also thank our partners at Save the Children Somalia who implemented the gender norms program called _Choices_ , in particular, Yahya Abdillahi, Hamse Koshin, Billow Hassan Abdi, Alice Shirley, Shelagh Possmayer, and Cianne Jones. This paper is an output of the World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab. We are grateful to the World Bank Group’s Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE) for financial support. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. IRB approval was obtained from HML IRB Research and Ethics, reference 574TWBG18. The pre-analysis plan is registered on the AEA RCT registry at https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2773.

> †University of California, Berkeley `rbrar@worldbank.org`

> ‡World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab `nbuehren@worldbank.org`

> §World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab `spapineni@worldbank.org (Corresponding author)`

> ¶BRAC Institute of Governance and Development `munshi.sulaiman@bracu.ac.bd`
# **1 Introduction**

_“A rebel with a cause is someone who breaks rules that should be broken. They break rules that hold them and others back, and their way of rule breaking is constructive rather than destructive. It creates positive change.” Gino (2018)_ Gender norms are shared expectations about how women and men should behave in a social group or culture. Restrictive or discriminatory gender norms creates social pressure that can adversely affect women and girl’s decisions around education, labor supply, marriage and fertility which are critical for women’s empowerment (Jayachandran, 2021). Shifting gender attitudes and norms to encourage greater female engagement in education and incomegenerating activity and male involvement in household production is necessary for reducing gender inequalities and to promote economic growth and development (Duflo, 2012).

Recently economic research has put greater emphasis on understanding how gender norms are formed (Alesina et al., 2013; Jayachandran, 2021), measured (Bernhardt et al., 2018; Bursztyn et al., 2023), and changed (Dhar et al., 2022; Bursztyn et al., 2020). Programs that directly challenge restrictive gender norms have also begun to be rigorously evaluated in some low- and middle-income country contexts. For example, interventions designed to change gender attitudes and norms (e.g. evidence from India by Dhar et al., 2022) or change how existing norms are perceived (e.g. in Saudi Arabia by Bursztyn et al., 2020) have been found to increase gender equitable attitudes and support women’s work. Similarly, programs that engage men in sessions of critical reflection on fatherhood and caregiving have led to higher levels of male participation in childcare and household tasks (e.g. in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Vaillant et al., 2020).

Our interest in this paper is to advance this nascent literature. We devise innovative behavioral games to examine social dynamics to supplement the survey data from a randomized controlled experiment of a gender norms intervention for adolescents in Somalia. For norms to be _social_ they must be shared by other people and partly sustained by their approval and disapproval (Elster, 1989). The behavioral games were designed to measure normative social influence, drawing insights from the field of social psychology which has long argued for the importance of social contexts and interactions for decision-making. We build on a series of conformity experiments developed by Asch (1951, 1952).<sup>1</sup> Using a novel lab-in-the-field experiment we modify Asch’s experiments to measure conformity in attitudes among adolescent peers who are asked to state their gender beliefs both in _private_ and in _public_ . The experiments allow us to study whether and how gender attitudes differ if expressed privately or publicly; and provide a causal link between the gender norms program and the observed behaviors among the study sample, albeit in a lab-in-the-field setting.<sup>2</sup> We also examine the marginal effect of a complementary gender norms intervention to parents on adolescent attitudes and behaviors.

In economics, conformity has been modeled in theory by Jones (1984); Bernheim (1994); Akerlof (1997), and shown to exist in educational settings (e.g. in Bursztyn and Jensen

> 1Asch provided provocative experimental findings of conformity by showing how easily individuals’ judgment can be manipulated in a group setting using a line-match exercise (Asch, 1951, 1952).

> 2 We use the experiment to observe actual behaviors and to address concerns that self-reported survey findings may reflect some social desirability bias.

2
(2015); Bursztyn et al. (2017, 2019)) and in politics (e.g. Perez-Truglia (2018)). Similarly, Akerlof and Kranton (2000, 2002, 2010) translated theories of social identity into an economics framework to propose that social identity influences economic outcomes when deviating from the prescribed behavior is inherently costly. When individuals derive utility from fitting in with society or with their peers, there may be a social cost of rebelling against prevailing norms. Adolescence, in particular, is a period when the desire to conform to be popular or fit in with peers may be felt acutely.<sup>3</sup> For example, Bursztyn and Jensen (2015) and Bursztyn et al. (2019) show that US students in high school under-invest in education to signal social compatibility to their peers. Similarly, Austen-Smith and Fryer (2005) show that minority US students shy away from educational investments to avoid “acting white” and in this way improve their social standing with peers. When opinions are observable to others, adolescents may try to conform to the group responses due to peer pressure.<sup>4</sup> Our experimental findings have potential implications for understanding different types of normative social influence more generally.

In this paper, we use random variation in individual participation in a program delivered to young adolescents that was designed to challenge restrictive gender norms in Somalia. Early adolescence is viewed as a critical window of opportunity for formulating positive gender attitudes and behaviors as children transition into adulthood (Baird et al., 2019). The gender norms training program called _Choices_ is implemented by the NGO Save the Children and targets adolescents aged 10-14 years.<sup>5</sup> This is the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) experiment to examine the _Choices_ program’s impact.<sup>6</sup> We report results from both individual-level surveys and a lab-in-the-field experiment to estimate the impact of the _Choices_ program on adolescents’ gender attitudes and behaviors, and examine whether the effects differ for boys and girls. In the randomized experiment we also test whether the participation of their parents in a complementary gender norms program influences the effects of the _Choices_ program on adolescent outcomes.<sup>7</sup> Importantly, we measure persistence of program effects beyond an immediate effect using two follow-up survey rounds: 6 months and 2 years post-intervention. We test a number of key mechanisms examining whether the program affects personally held gender attitudes, perceptions of others’ beliefs, the propensity to conform to gender norms, and the willingness to stand up for their own beliefs, even in the face of opposing views.

First, our results show that the _Choices_ program in Somalia has a positive treatment impact on the personal gender equitable attitudes reported by both adolescent boys and girls. The treatment led to a 0.07 standard deviation increase in an index of gender equitable attitudes in the short-run, and a 0.05 standard deviation unit increase in the longer-run.

> 3The _Choices_ program studied here targets young adolescents aged 10-14. Therefore, study participants may be vulnerable to peer pressure to conform. One may also expect adolescence to be a period of greater rebellion against societal expectations as individuals wrestle with gaining a sense of individuality and identity.

> 4We examine conformity as a behavioral outcome that measures an adolescent’s likelihood of changing their privately-held personal attitudes when grouped with peers of the same or opposite sex in public.

> 5 _Choices_ is a component of the Challenging Harmful Attitudes and Norms for Gender Equality and Empowerment in Somalia (CHANGES) program under the Social Norms and Participation (SNaP) project.

> 6The _Choices_ program has been adapted for use in over 10 countries. The program was evaluated in Nepal using quasi-experimental evaluation methods by Lundgren et al. (2013, 2020).

> 7Parents are invited to attend separate training sessions in an “Engaging Men and Boys” (EMB) component of the CHANGES program attended by adults in the community.

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Next, we show that adolescents alter the attitudes they express in a social group setting. In the lab-in-the-field experiment we demonstrate significant social influence based on the gender composition of the peer group to which individuals were randomly assigned.<sup>8</sup> Boys respond to the presence of girls in their group by giving more gender egalitarian responses in private, while the opposite is true for girls. This may mean that girls and boys experience different types of social influence and that social desirability bias might go in opposite directions. We find that treated adolescents were also more likely to stand by their gender egalitarian attitudes when responding in public.<sup>9</sup> Treated adolescents were less likely to succumb to group peer pressure to conform, even when faced with opposing gender views.<sup>10</sup> We find changes in perceived gender norms for boys but not for girls, which suggests normative pressures from peers may be different for boys and girls. However, we find no impacts on the desire to conform in general. This result supports the notion that what we observe are social dynamics specific to gender attitudes and norms taught by the _Choices_ program and is not reflective of conformity in other domains or of outright rebellion - we refer to this as to _rebel with a cause_ .

Furthermore, we examine behavioral outcomes to find that the _Choices_ program increased boys’ reported participation in household chores, and both boys and girls report enhanced caring behaviors towards siblings of the opposite sex. The program also leads to improved mental health outcomes whereby both adolescent girls and boys report a reduction in the emotional and behavioral problems that they face. This finding supports the results described in Baird et al. (2019) who show a correlation between restrictive gender attitudes and worse mental health outcomes among adolescents in Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and in Andrew et al. (2022) who find positive impacts of a norms program on mental health outcomes for girls in India after engaging the wider community.

Our paper makes three important contributions. The first contribution is in the development of measures that capture social influences and norms. This aspect of our work is novel because previous work have mostly investigated the effects of gender norms programs using self-reported survey data. A key concern in evaluating the effects of norms programs on self-reported attitudes is that they may reflect some social desirability bias among the treatment group rather than actual changes in attitudes. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment, we try to link responses to observed behaviors to address this issue.<sup>11</sup> While the reference group in our experiment is a randomly-assigned group of adolescent peers, future work could explore social dynamics with alternative reference groups.<sup>12</sup> 8In the experiment we randomly grouped participants into teams of five with different gender compositions (all boys, all girls, and mixed gender groups).

> 9In the experiment each adolescent was privately interviewed and asked if they agreed or disagreed with three gender attitudes statements and play two line-match games where participants were asked to match lines drawn on paper according to their length in private. This private interview was done with an enumerator asking questions that are typical of self-reported survey questions. We subsequently repeated the two exercises in their team setting. Participants were asked to publicly express their gender attitudes and the line choice in their teams, one after the other, where they could deviate from their private answers.

> 10In our analysis, we consider both the influence of responses in the positions before (position effects) and potential peer effects from teammates who attended the gender norms program ( _Choices_ peer effects).

> 11We also collect a short-form version of the Marlowe-Crowne social desirability scale to check our main results are robust to a social desirability bias correction as in Dhar et al. (2022).

> 12For example, alternative reference groups may include other influential actors such as community el-

4
Our second main contribution to the literature is that this study is one of the first randomized controlled trials in Somalia; a conflict-affected country with restrictive female labor norms and where publicly available data is scarce. Somalia is also an example of a country where the prevailing norms support more restrictive roles for women and girls. It ranks as the fourth lowest in the world in terms of gender equality, and female labor force participation remains low and stagnant at just 22% (UNDP, 2012; ILO, 2019).<sup>13</sup> Patriarchal practices persist, including female genital mutilation (FGM), son-preference, and child and forced marriage.<sup>14</sup> Our study collects unique data on attitudes, norms and behaviors from both adolescents and adults to estimate the causal effect of programs to promote gender equality in an understudied setting.

A third contribution is that we provide direct evidence of the effects of a gender norms program for adolescents in- and out-of-school and test the additional effect of a parental treatment arm.<sup>15</sup> Recent research has demonstrated that engaging the broader community in normative change can be effective (Andrew et al., 2022; Chetty and Hendren, 2018; Dahl et al., 2020). However, the causal impact of gender norms programs for parents on adolescent outcomes is largely unexplored.<sup>16</sup> Programs that encourage behaviors that go against societal expectations may cause backlash effects (Aizer, 2010). Engaging participants’ parents was meant to elicit greater support from the family for adolescents to engage more in nonstereotypical behaviors in their daily lives without repercussions.<sup>17</sup> We show that training parents leads to an increase in reported gender egalitarian attitudes among mothers and fathers in the short-run, and attitudes around equal gender rights to education are maintained in the longer-run. However, we find limited additional impact of the parent treatment on adolescent-level attitudes and behaviors. Importantly, we find no immediate backlash effects from the _Choices_ program and the relationship quality with both parents is similar between treatment and control groups.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We begin, in Section 2, by defining the interrelationship between attitudes, norms and conformity that are the focus of this paper. Section 3 describes the gender norms interventions to adolescents and parents, while section 4 outlines details of the evaluation design. Section 5 describes the data and our sample, including the lab-in-the-field experiment. Section 6 outlines the estimation strategy and section 7 presents the results for adolescents; the effects on parents’ attitudes and perceived norms are reported in the Appendix. We provide concluding thoughts in Section 8.

> ders/leaders, partners, teachers and/or parents.

> 13Somalia scored 0.776 (1 is complete inequality) in UNDP Global Gender Inequality Index (UNDP, 2012).

> 14UNFPA estimates 97% of Somali girls (15-19 years) are circumcised, and 36% of women in Somalia are married before they turn 18 (UNFPA, 2020).

> 15Previous research have shown effects of gender norms programs delivered in school (Dhar et al., 2022).

> 16Dhar et al. (2019) provide descriptive evidence that mothers influence children’s gender attitudes more than fathers in India.

> 17We examine impacts on parental attitudes and norms towards gender equality, FGM, intimate partner violence, and early marriage; and ask whether this influences _Choices_ ’ effect on adolescent outcomes.

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# **2 Attitudes, Norms and Conformity**

Before turning to the empirical analysis, we first define key terms and concepts, and discuss their interrelationship when considering the effects of a program that tackles restrictive gender norms.

Social norms are implicit, specific rules shared by a group of individuals on how they should behave. Gender norms, more specifically, refer to how women and men should behave in a social group or culture.<sup>18</sup> We refer to personal attitudes as to what individuals think themselves, and perceived norms are what individuals think others think.<sup>19</sup> Recent studies have emphasized the importance of perceived norms for decision-making (see for example, Bicchieri, 2016; Tankard and Paluck, 2016; Field et al., 2021; Bursztyn et al., 2023). When social norms change, individuals’ perceptions about what others do and approve of could change collectively; although not necessarily uniformly within a population.

Conformity captures how individuals are influenced by what their particular social group thinks. Social norms are often sustained by conformist behavior through multiple mechanisms, including a desire to coordinate, fear of being sanctioned, signaling membership in a group, or simply following the lead of others (Young, 2015). In the Asch (1952) conformity experiments study participants are asked to match the correct length of a line. Actors or “confederates” pick the wrong line and study participants are found to be coerced by conformity to also pick the wrong line even if they know it is wrong. Asch (1952) finds that in a situation where an individual is asked to decide on the correct line alone in private, less than 1% make a mistake and pick the incorrect line. However, in group situations with confederates, individuals are wrong 33% of the time. In this context, conformity is a key concept that is defined as a type of social influence involving the tendency to change personal perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms.

Conforming individuals may act to restrain their own beliefs if these were to violate prevailing social norms in order to achieve social gains or avoid social penalties. For example, social sanctions may include the prospect of social disapproval, ostracism, loss of status, and other forms of social punishment (Young, 2015). Conversely, non-conformity is the result if individual attitudes or behaviors deviate from the prevailing norm and individuals decide to act or express their personal opinion accordingly. Social conformity is often explained by either peer pressure or information i.e. normative social influence (altering your behavior to fit in with the group), informational social influence (assuming others are better informed) or perceptual error (believing the group gave the correct answer).<sup>20</sup> Norm shifting can eventually occur if there is a sufficient number of individuals who do not conform to a norm so that it becomes evident that a previously held perceived norm does not prevail anymore. For example, Bertrand (2020) proposes that direct exposure to

> 18Norms around the acceptability of women’s work out of the home, roles and responsibilities in the home, women’s mobility, capacity to interact with men and/or the male breadwinner status could all be at play when it comes to a woman’s decision to enter the labor force (Jayachandran, 2021).

> 19Beliefs about what others do are referred to as _descriptive_ norms and beliefs about what others approve of are referred to as _injunctive_ norms in social norms theory (Cialdini et al., 1991; Heinicke et al., 2022). In our measure of perceived norms we are capturing the injunctive norm (what individuals think others might approve or disapprove of) and not the descriptive norm (what individuals think others do).

> 20Sunstein (2019) provides a useful summary discussion in his book “Conformity”.

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a proscribed counter-stereotypical behavior, such as women’s work outside the home, may eventually reduce norm costs associated with the behavior and help erode the restrictive norm. In this way, we consider individual non-conformist behavior as a first-order condition to allow for norms change at the societal level. The _Choices_ program aimed to shift personal gender attitudes and make the returns to gender equality more salient.<sup>21</sup> We measure personal gender attitudes, perceived community norms and conformity through self-reported survey questions and complement these constructs with behavioral measures of perceived norms and social conformity from a lab-in-the-field experiment. Conformity is considered a behavior that is situationally determined rather than an individual trait or characteristic. In our experiment we define conformity as adolescents taking actions or stating beliefs in a public group setting that deviate from what they privately considered to be the optimal action or belief; what they would say or do if peers would not observe them. Specifically, we first measure conformity with respect to gender beliefs (the focus of the _Choices_ training content), whereby we assess whether adolescents switch their private response when in public in front of a randomly selected group of peers. That is, we explore individuals’ likelihood of conforming in public where they may be confronted with an opposing view to their own. Next, we measure conformity in an abstract setting where respondents are asked to match the length of lines as in the Asch conformity experiments. The line match games are used to bolster the argument that what we observe are social dynamics specific to gender norms that were thematized by the program, not a broader influence on conformity. Finally, we examine self-reports of conformist behavior from the surveys.

Societal norms often establish gender differences and there is literature showing differences in the way men and women conform to social influence. See for example, Eagly and Carli (2007) who conduct a meta-analysis and find that women are more persuadable and conforming than men in group pressure situations that involve surveillance. This implies that the gender composition of the group may play a role in conformity. Indeed, Reitan and Shaw (1964) show that men and women conformed more when there were participants of both sexes involved versus participants of the same sex. In our conformity experiments we examine different types of social influence for both boys and girls and explore the influence of: (1) the effect of _Choices_ peers in an individual’s team, (2) mixed-gender vs. single-gender teams, and (3) what responses were given by other peers directly before an individual responds in public.

> 21Studies in low- and middle-income countries have typically focused on programs that try to change social norms that are restrictive or sustain harmful or discriminatory practices.

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# **3 Gender Norms Program**

The _Choices_ program aims to encourage the development of positive, mutually-respectful gender attitudes and behaviors among adolescent boys and girls and promotes greater gender equality in the home.<sup>22</sup> The program is targeted to adolescents aged 10 to 14 years old and the program’s curriculum is designed to address, discuss and reflect on relevant gender norms, in particular, those norms that relate to gender roles both with respect to work outside of the home and domestic responsibilities within the household.

The _Choices_ program involves adolescents’ participation in ten 2-hour sessions over three months in an after-school program. In these sessions adolescents are engaged in interactive, age-appropriate, exploratory activities which are meant to initiate a dialogue about their notions of respect, communication, fairness and their dreams for the future. Each session would typically include two trainers (male and female) who would instruct mixed-gender activities such as drama, poetry and debate competitions. The _Choices_ sessions in each community were mostly mixed-gender but for some chapters of the training, boys and girls were separated.<sup>23</sup> Similarly, the goal of the _EMB_ training is to promote gender equality by engaging adult men and women in community discussions on various topics, such as: gender norms, fatherhood, violence, and child marriage.<sup>24</sup> Both mothers and fathers were invited to attend these discussions and instructed to identify, analyze and address the role they play in gender inequalities and to invite them to self-reflect and make changes. The interventions often use existing community structures such as youth clubs or community centers to deliver the training.

This impact evaluation will test the effectiveness of the _Choices_ program and marginal impact of the _EMB_ program. An important contribution of this research project will be to assess if the effects persist beyond an immediate effect right after the training, with a six month and two year follow-up. The study took place in six districts across Somalia: Hargeisa, Burao, Erigavo and Badhan in Somaliland; and Galkayo and Galdogob in Puntland.

All adolescents aged between 10 and 14 years who were living in targeted program communities were considered eligible for the _Choices_ intervention irrespective of whether they were in- or out-of-school. For the _EMB_ program there is typically no strict eligibility criteria for taking part in the community discussions of about 30 participants. For the purpose of this study, however, we specifically invited parents of a subset of the adolescents to attend the EMB sessions as per the randomized controlled trial study design described in the next section.<sup>25</sup>

> 22The _Choices_ training curriculum was developed by Save the Children International, and has been adapted for Somalia and for over 10 other countries including Egypt, Bangladesh, and Bolivia.

The _Choices_ model has also been strengthened with complementary activities which expand its influence into families and wider communities (the programs are called _Voices_ and _Promises_ ) that are offered together as part of the _CHANGES_ project in Somalia. _CHANGES_ is a community-level program implemented by a consortium led by Save the Children in partnership with CARE International and International Rescue Committee. _Choices_ is the only component that targets adolescents.

> 23Out of the 10 chapters, there were 2-3 chapters where boys and girls were separated.

> 24For a full description of modules for the _Choices_ and _EMB_ interventions, refer to the Appendix.

> 25The implementing partner was instructed to adhere to treatment lists to avoid potential contamination concerns.

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# **4 Study Design**

This study uses a randomized control trial design to measure impacts of the _Choices_ and _EMB_ programs, and to explore the pathways of the observed changes. The evaluation strategy builds on household-level randomization. Households could be randomly assigned into one of the following three groups: (1) _Choices Only_ : Adolescents invited to participate in _Choices_ training; (2) _Choices+EMB_ : Adolescents invited to participate in _Choices_ training and adult household members (typically parents) invited to participate in _EMB_ sessions; and (3) Control group: Adolescents not invited to the _Choices_ training.

For those households that were assigned to the _Choices+EMB_ treatment arm, the biological parents of the adolescents were invited to attend an _EMB_ session if they were living in the household. If there were no biological parents present in the household, any male and/or female primary caregiver was invited to attend _EMB_ sessions.

The randomization was stratified by community cluster, gender of the adolescent, school enrollment, and gender of the household head. There could be more than one eligible adolescent per household.<sup>26</sup> A household level randomization ensured that adolescents within a household were not assigned to different treatments which minimizes possible spillover or contamination effects. Our study design is not set up to capture or examine spillover effects which can arise if treated adolescents or parents share information and material from the trainings within their networks. If knowledge spillovers occur between treated and control households then our results are likely biased downward which means that our analysis will underestimate the program’s effect. Table A5 in the Appendix shows that gender attitudes in the control group are fairly stable over time from baseline, midline to endline which suggests that spillover effects are not a major factor.<sup>27</sup>

# **5 Data**

## **5.1 Survey Data**

In order to establish a sampling frame, the implementing partner conducted a community mapping exercise and identified project sites covering urban, peri-urban, rural and internally displaced persons (IDP) communities. For the evaluation, 33 community clusters were selected across the six project districts based on accessibility and population size.<sup>28</sup> The research team completed a census to list all the children aged 10-14 years in at least 400 households located within each of the targeted communities. The census also collected information on the adolescent’s willingness to participate in the _Choices_ training to predict program take-up. The listing also asked for parental consent to participate in the program

> 26Strata for mixed-gender or all enrolled in school were considered for the multiple adolescent households. 27The few attitudes that change over time may be driven by cohort effects as adolescents are 3 years older.

> 28The program team had originally identified 37 communities. However, following the household listing exercise, 5 communities which had fewer than 80 young adolescents listed were excluded. In addition, 5 of the larger communities were divided into 2 separate clusters each: Daami B, October IDP, Bacadweyn, Waaberi and Statehouse. Approximately 100 households were dropped from the census listing for having incorrect GPS coordinates and another 50 households did not provide study consent.

9
to establish eligibility. Overall, the census listing contains data from 8,572 adolescents from 4,341 households. Our baseline survey sample consisted of randomly selected 2,393 households that were stratified by community cluster and adolescent gender.

The main source of data we use for the evaluation is three rounds of individual-level surveys administered to both adolescents and their parents: one baseline, and two follow-up surveys (midline and endline). The baseline survey was conducted from February to July 2018 just before program implementation started. The midline survey was administered between February 2019 and January 2020 - after approximately half of those assigned to the _Choices_ training had completed the training. The endline survey was completed between September 2020 and October 2021, after all _Choices_ training and _EMB_ sessions were completed and after a coronavirus government-mandated lockdown period had been removed in Somalia.<sup>29</sup> The follow-up surveys were timed to take place approximately 6 months and 2 years post-intervention. To participate in the surveys, written or verbal consent, depending on literacy level, was obtained from parents or guardians, as well as from the adolescents themselves. Surveys were translated into Somali language and data collection took place through face-to-face interviews with enumerators. Wherever possible, the enumerator was from the same region as the adolescent. Questions and scales were piloted extensively and enumerators were trained carefully in the wording of the questions and how to appropriately interact with young adolescents.

Each respondent was interviewed in private and adolescents and parents were asked two different questionnaires. Typically the adolescent’s mother and/or father were interviewed for the adult survey.<sup>30</sup> At baseline, adolescents were asked to provide information on basic demographic characteristics (such as age, education and health), attitudes towards gender equality and perceived community norms (particularly on the role of women in- and outside of the household), opinions on marriage, hope and aspirations for the future, as well as their answers to a strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ).<sup>31</sup> Adolescents were also asked to provide information on the quality of the relationship with their parents, time use, and their involvement in household chores. Parents were asked about their own marriage history, decision-making power and attitude towards intimate partner violence (IPV), gender attitudes and perceived norms, behavioral characteristics (conformity, risk preferences), aspirations for their children, and opinions on FGM and early marriage.<sup>32</sup> The midline and endline questionnaires were very similar to the baseline but collected additional information 29The COVID-19 pandemic reached Somalia in March 2020 and the country went into lockdown for several months. In July 2020 most of the government restrictions in Somalia had been lifted and schools reopened in August 2020. The lockdown also explains the relatively long survey period as survey teams tried to match the timing of surveys to the timing of the rollout of the intervention in each of the 6 districts.

> 30The respondent for the adult module was typically one or both parents or guardians. Enumerators were instructed to survey the mother and whenever possible, the father too. The baseline sample consists of 57% of households with one female respondent, 9% with one male respondent and 34% with both a female and a male respondent. Data is representative of mothers for all rounds of the survey. However, data from fathers should be considered a more selective sample as it was difficult to track and survey fathers for all rounds.

> 31Scales to measure attitudes and mental health outcomes were changed from a 3-point Likert scale at baseline to agree/disagree options in the follow-up surveys to make it easier for adolescents to respond accurately. In the Appendix we detail the individual statements in the attitudes index and present the Cronbach’s alpha to test for scale reliability (Cronbach’s alpha of the gender attitudes index is 0.798).

> 32Parents were also asked to provide basic information on the household including demographic information, plus food security, household assets and consumption modules.

10
on certain topics.<sup>33</sup> The survey was conducted with all adolescents living in sampled households who fell into the targeted age range. In total, information from 3,237 adolescents across 2,393 households was collected at baseline.

# **5.2 Lab-in-the-Field Experimental Data**

Lab-in-the-field experiments supplement the survey data at endline. The experiments allow us to study in which way gender attitudes differ if expressed privately or publicly. To do this, we first randomly grouped participants into teams of five with different gender compositions and asked them to choose a leader and deputy for the team. Next, each adolescent in the experiment sample was privately interviewed and asked to choose if they agree or disagree with three gender attitudes statements and play two line-match games in private. During the line-match game, participants were shown a set of lines and they were asked to indicate which of these lines had the same length as the reference line which was also shown to them. Next, we repeated the two exercises in their team setting. That is, all participants were asked to express their gender attitudes and the line choice in their teams one after the other in public where they could deviate from their private answers. We use the private and public statements to measure social conformity which is similar to the conformity line game conducted by the psychologist Solomon Asch (Asch, 1951, 1952). Further details of the lab-in-the-field experiments are included in the Appendix.

The aim was for each community cluster in the study sample to host at least two experimental sessions. Each of these sessions consisted of 20 adolescents (10 girls and 10 boys) divided into four teams, each with one of four gender compositions (all boys, all girls, mixed majority boys, mixed majority girls). Each team included both control group and treatment group participants. Games were completed for a subset of the study sample randomly selected.<sup>34</sup> The lab-in-the-field experimental games were completed between November 2020 and June 2021 to coincide with the endline.

# **5.3 Balance Check and Sample Description**

In Table 1 we show that the randomization produced balanced groups at baseline on a set of observable covariates. The sample is distributed across different types of communities with approximately 40% internally displaced persons (IDP), 40% urban, and 20% rural. The

> 33The midline survey also included questions on participation in the _Choices_ training, additional beliefs and community norms, time use, household chores, and a module to capture social desirability bias. We capture social desirability bias through the 13-item social desirability scale, which Reynolds (1982) demonstrates is a viable substitute for the 33-item Marlowe-Crowne scale. The endline survey included additional questions on marital status, fertility, and girls’ menstruation status in the adolescent questionnaire as these questions may have become applicable to some of the older adolescents in the study. For both adolescents and adults, we included a measure of generalized self-efficacy (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995). Parents’ expectations on fertility, marriage, and FGM for adolescents was also collected.

> 34The sampling for the lab-in-the-field experiment was stratified by community cluster, gender of the adolescent and treatment status. Replacement names were also shared with the implementing partner who were instructed to ensure each session had exactly 20 adolescents with an equal representation of male and female adolescents plus treatment and control adolescents.

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average number of household members is 6.5. The majority of adolescents are enrolled in school: 81% at baseline (79% girls and 84% boys). While the program was often delivered using school infrastructure, adolescents out-of-school were also eligible (19% of the sample are not currently enrolled in school). The average age of children in the sample is just under 12 years old (targeted age range is 10-14 years). The average age of FGM for girls in the community is 8.5 years. In terms of child marriage, adult respondents estimate 43% of girls in the community are married before turning 18 years old (descriptive norm) and about 36% of mothers were under 18 years when first married. The majority of parents are married in monogamous relationships, with 12% in polygamous marriages and 12% divorced/widowed.

# **5.4 Survey Attrition**

In Table A6 in the Appendix we show that survey attrition rates are balanced across treatment and control groups. At midline, 62% of respondents were successfully re-surveyed; and at endline we achieved an 82% survey completion rate. At midline there was a higher attrition rate than anticipated due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Somalia. The midline data collection was halted before completing the final district, Galdogob. Overall, 89% of the sample surveyed at baseline (3,327 adolescents in 2,393 households) were tracked and resurveyed at either midline or endline. Most of the intended lab-in-the-field games sessions were completed (91%), resulting in 1,000 adolescents included in 50 games sessions.<sup>35</sup>

# **5.5 Treatment Uptake**

All intervention activities took place between June 2018 and April 2020. The trainings were rolled out in different time periods across the 6 districts and conducted in two batches within each district.<sup>36</sup> Training facilitators were tasked with reporting attendance at the individual level. However, the attendance lists were frequently collected on paper and poorly digitized so it is difficult to decipher which adolescents and adults attended which training sessions. Based on these incomplete training lists we estimate an average take-up rate of at least 40%50% of invited adolescents across all districts, with no difference between the two treatment arms. Since we do not have individual level participation we do not present the treatment on the treated (ToT) effects to supplement the intention to treat (ITT) estimates.

> 35Somalia is a fragile and conflict affected country where operations and research face particular challenges. The project operates in a number of regions of Somalia covering both Somaliland and Puntland and included adolescents living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Data collection efforts in Somalia are difficult especially when tracking young adolescents over a period of several years. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic there were already several context-specific hurdles faced in collecting data, including: border tensions between Somaliland and Puntland restricting travel to certain program areas, working in IDP camps, elections, and increased migration due to drought problems experienced throughout the study. Despite the setbacks the study was successful in collecting data where there is a need to fill data gaps.

> 36Batch rollout of the training was also randomized.

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Table 1: Randomization Balance Check

|||||Survey sample||||Games sa|mple|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)<br>Control|(2)<br>CHOICES<br>Only|(3)<br>CHOICES+<br>EMB|(4)|(5)<br>t-test diff<br>{Normalized diff}|(6)|(7)<br>Control|(8)<br>CHOICES|(9)<br>t-test diff<br>{Normalized diff}|
||Mean|Mean|Mean|(1)-(2)|(1)-(3)|(2)-(3)|Mean|Mean|(7)-(8)|
|_Panel A: Adolescent characteristics_||||||||||
|Age (Years)|11.801|11.825|11.866|-0.024|-0.064|-0.041|11.750|11.702|0.048|
|||||{-0.016}|{-0.043}|{-0.027}|||{0.032}|
|Has sibling(s) (Yes=1)|0.983|0.974|0.989|0.009|-0.006|-0.015**|0.981|0.984|-0.003|
|||||{0.062}|{-0.049}|{-0.109}|||{-0.024}|
|Enrolled in school (Yes=1)|0.800|0.813|0.799|-0.014<br>|0.000<br>|0.014<br>|0.832|0.804|0.028<br>|
|||||{-0.034}|{0.000}|{0.035}|||{0.071}|
|Gender Equitable Index Score (0-1)|0.525|0.529|0.531|-0.004<br>|-0.006<br>|-0.002<br>|0.514|0.521|-0.007<br>|
|||||{-0.020}|{-0.028}|{-0.008}|||{-0.034}|
|Number of chores in past week (of 8)|3.241|3.149|3.154|0.092<br>|0.086<br>|-0.005<br>|3.373|3.223|0.150<br>|
|||||{0.037}|{0.035}|{-0.002}|||{0.061}|
|Mental Health Index (SDQ Total 0-20)|6.880|6.841|6.641|0.039|0.239|0.199|7.142|6.746|0.396|
|||||{0.010}|{0.059}|{0.049}|||{0.093}|
|_Panel B: Household characteristics_||||||||||
|Multiple VYA in household (Yes=1)|0.534|0.534|0.556|-0.001|-0.023|-0.022|0.522|0.540|-0.017|
|||||-0.002|-0.046|-0.044|||{-0.035}|
|Type of residence: IDP camp (Yes=1)|0.427|0.413|0.406|0.014|0.021|0.007|0.466|0.473|-0.007|
|||||0.028|0.043|0.015|||{-0.015}|
|Type of residence: Urban (Yes=1)|0.398|0.400|0.404|-0.002|-0.006|-0.004|0.303|0.306|-0.003|
|||||-0.004|-0.012|-0.008|||{-0.007}|
|Type of residence: Rural (Yes=1)|0.175|0.186|0.190|-0.012|-0.015|-0.003|0.231|0.221|0.010|
|||||-0.031|-0.040|-0.009|||{0.025}|
|Household size (Number)|6.471|6.400|6.514|0.071|-0.042|-0.114|6.432|6.500|-0.068|
|||||0.029|-0.017|-0.045|||{-0.028}|
|Household Dietary Diversity Score (0-12)|6.471|6.490|6.478|-0.019|-0.007|0.012|6.106|6.345|-0.239|
|||||{-0.006}|{-0.002}|{0.004}|||{-0.078}|
|Total number of types of assets (0-24)|4.313|4.468|4.165|-0.155<br>|0.148<br>|0.303**<br>|3.947|4.434|-0.487**<br>|
|||||{-0.051}|{0.049}|{0.099}|||{-0.173}|
|Household expenses last 30 days (USD)<br>|192.835|196.342|190.608|-3.508<br>{-0.023}|2.227<br>{0.015}|5.734<br>{0.039}|165.447|175.315|-9.868<br>{-0.081}|
|_Panel C: Parental characteristics_||||||||||
|Father has earning activity (Yes=1)|0.596|0.546|0.543|0.050**|0.054**|0.004|0.634|0.578|0.056|
|||||{0.101}|{0.109}|{0.008}|||{0.115}|
|Mother has earning activity (Yes=1)|0.400|0.388|0.382|0.012|0.018|0.007|0.407|0.412|-0.005|
|||||{0.024}|{0.037}|{0.013}|||{-0.010}|
|Father has some education (Yes=1)|0.213|0.193|0.214|0.019|-0.002|-0.021|0.265|0.204|0.061**|
|||||{0.048}|{-0.005}|{-0.053}|||{0.146}|
|Mother has some education (Yes=1)|0.156|0.174|0.165|-0.018|-0.008|0.009|0.164|0.173|-0.009|
|||||{-0.047}|{-0.022}|{0.025}|||{-0.023}|
|Number of observations|1,068|1,087|1,082||||268|578||
|F-test of joint significance (p-value)||||0.557|0.482|0.285|||0.225|
|F-test, number of observations||||2,155|2,150|2,169|||846|
|***, **, and * indicate significance at the 1, 5,|and 10 perce|nt critical le|vel.|||||||
|All variables in Table 1 measured during the<br>Value variables have been winsorized at the|baseline surv<br>99th percentil|ey<br>e. VYA is "V|ery Young Ad|olescent" mea|ning any children wi|th program eli|gible age of|10-14 years.||

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# **6 Empirical Strategy**

## **6.1 Survey Data Analysis**

### **Adolescent Outcomes**

Our main intention-to-treat (ITT) impact estimations for adolescent outcomes use the following analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) specification:<sup>37</sup> Where _Yi,t_ =1 _,_ 2 is the outcome variable for adolescent _i_ measured at midline ( _t_ = 1) and endline ( _t_ = 2), and _Yi,t_ =0 is the baseline value of the outcome variable.<sup>38</sup> _CHOICESi_ is a dummy variable that equals 1 if adolescent _i_ was randomly assigned to receive the _Choices_ training program. That is, this indicator equals 1 if adolescent _i_ was assigned to either _Choices only_ or the combined _Choices_ and _EMB_ treatment arms and 0 for the control group. _EMBi_ is a dummy variable that equals 1 if adolescent _i_ also had at least one adult in their household assigned to receive the _EMB_ training sessions. _Xi,t_ =0 is a vector of baseline control variables, _λd_ are district-level fixed effects, and _εit_ is the error term. Standard errors are clustered at the community cluster level.

In Equation 1 the coefficient _β_ 1 measures the impact of the _Choices_ training relative to the control group, and _β_ 2 measures the marginal impact of having your parents/guardians being trained in _EMB_ . We do not estimate a separate treatment effect for the treatment arm that combines the two interventions, instead, we are more interested in showing the marginal effect of involving parents directly in the program. Throughout the analysis, we control for whether there were multiple adolescents eligible for the program in the household, and the age of the adolescent. We do not pool the two follow-up survey rounds as we are interested in estimating the short-run effects (midline) and longer-run effects (endline) separately. We run the regressions on both the full sample of adolescents as well as conduct heterogeneity analysis by respondents’ sex.

Our survey instruments include several questions about individual behaviors or beliefs that are closely related. To account for multiple hypothesis testing, we create indices for outcome families following the method used by Kling et al. (2007). More precisely, we aggregate primary outcome variables into an index or composite variable to be the equally weighted average of z-scores, where z-scores are calculated by first subtracting the control group mean of the variable and then dividing by the control group standard deviation before taking the average of these normalized variables. We also present sharpened False Discover Rate q-values based on a simple method proposed by Benjamini et al. (2006) to calculate the smallest level of significance at which the null hypothesis would be rejected as described in Anderson (2008). These sharpened two-stage q-values are presented in our main regression tables in square parentheses below the standard errors.

> 37The ANCOVA estimator has been shown to have more statistical power than a difference-in-differences estimator when outcomes are not strongly autocorrelated (McKenzie, 2012).

> 38For those outcome variables that were only collected during follow-up surveys, we estimate equation 1 without controlling for the baseline value of the outcome ( _Yi,t_ =0).

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In the Appendix we conduct several robustness checks for our main treatment results. First, we control for a social desirability scale to examine if any treatment effects are driven by responses with a socially desirable answer.<sup>39</sup> Second, we test whether effects are robust to including additional control variables identified using the double-LASSO-selected controls procedure of Belloni et al. (2014).

## **Parental Outcomes**

When analyzing the responses from adults, we are mainly interested in the ITT impact estimates for those parents who had adolescents assigned to the combined _Choices_ and _EMB_ treatment arm, i.e. the treatment arm where parents were invited to attend a training themselves. To do so, we estimate Equation 1 where all variables are measured at the individual adult level. and all variables have the equivalent definition as before.<sup>40</sup> Hence, the coefficient _β_ 1 measures the impact of a child assigned to participate in the _Choices_ training on outcomes measured at the parent-level, and _β_ 2 measures the impact of parents/guardians being trained in _EMB_ . Again, throughout the analysis, we control for whether there were multiple adolescents eligible for the program in the sampled household, and the age of the respondent. We also split the sample by father and mother.<sup>41</sup>

# **6.2 Experimental Games Outcomes**

In the analysis of _Choices_ program impacts on adolescent outcome variables collected during the lab-in-the-field experiments, we use outcome-specific regression specifications as described below. For the impact analysis of the games outcomes, we focus on estimating the impact of the invitation to participate in the _Choices_ program only and do not report the marginal effect for the _EMB_ component.

## **Social Conformity and Perceived Norms**

We set up a series of games to capture social influences on attitudes expressed in private and in public. First, participants were randomized into teams of 5 with different gender compositions and then were asked to report their beliefs in private during the initial registration process. Adolescents gave their views on three statements measuring gender attitudes.<sup>42</sup> Next, adolescents were asked to give public responses to the same three statements but now expressed in public to the other team members. The order in which adolescents announced their view in the team setting was randomly determined for each round. As a robustness check, we also ask adolescents to play two versions of a line match game in private, and

> 39 We use the 13-item social desirability scale, which Reynolds (1982) shows is a viable substitute for the 33-item Marlowe-Crowne scale.

> 40Again, for those outcome variables that were only collected during follow-up surveys, we estimate equation 1 without the level of the outcome variable at baseline ( _Yi,t_ =0).

> 41Note that the sample size for fathers during follow-up survey rounds is low with a response rate of 22%, whereas the sample size for mothers is more representative.

> 42Adolescents were asked if they agreed or disagreed to the following 3 statements: (1) It is more important for a girl to help at home than spend time studying, (2) It is okay for a man to hit his wife if she disagrees with him, and (3) Boys should have more free time than girls.

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then in public to measure social conformity more generally; in an abstract and non-gendered context. This is further explained below and described in more detail in the Appendix. To measure social conformity we estimate the following equation: _CHOICESi_ is an indicator variable for whether adolescent _i_ was randomly assigned to _Choices_ and _Xi_ a vector of controls measured at baseline; defined as before. _NumChoicesi_ controls for the number of adolescents assigned to the _Choices_ treatment within the team excluding adolescent _i_ to account for peer effects. We pool all three gendered statements and analyze the results as a stacked regression and thus include statement fixed effects ( _δj_ ). _λd_ are district-level fixed effects. The standard errors are clustered at the individual level. The regressions are run for the full sample of adolescents as well as sub-samples split by gender.

For gender attitudes, the outcome _Yij_ is a dummy variable that indicates whether the adolescent changed their statement _j_ in a public group setting from what they stated in private.<sup>43</sup> For example, if an adolescent gave a gender egalitarian response in private and switched to a gender discriminatory response in public the outcome for this individual would be coded as 1. This is our measure of social conformity in the gender domain.

For the line match game study participants were asked to choose one line, out of four possible options, that would match a reference line in length. Two of the four options actually had the correct length. The outcome _Yij_ is therefore a dummy variable for whether adolescent _i_ is classified as displaying either _weak conformity_ or _strong conformity_ . _Weak conformity_ refers to those adolescents who switch from one correctly identified option in private to the other correct option in public. _Strong conformity_ refers to those adolescents who switch from a correctly identified option in private to an incorrect option in public. The sample is restricted to those who identified the correct answer in private.<sup>44</sup> The standard errors are clustered at the team level.

For the confederates line game, the setup is very similar except that the first two respondents were asked in private to identify one of the incorrect options, and that there was only a single correct option. The sample is restricted to those who answered correctly in private; omitting the leader and deputy, who were the ones prompted to answer incorrectly. Here, the outcome _Yij_ is one of three dummy variables that capture whether the respondent (i) maintained the correct answer; (ii) named an incorrect option but not the one identified by the leader and deputy; and (iii) conformed and identified the same incorrect options as the leader and deputy. In the regressions we again cluster standard errors at the team level.

When analyzing social conformity we also examine position effects. That is, we want to examine the effect of prior responses in the public setup. To account for this in the regressions, we include an interaction term between the _Choices_ treatment dummy and whether the previous _n −_ 1 or modal response of all previous answers in the public setting is different to the private response of adolescent _i_ . For the positions analysis the sample is restricted to those seated in positions 2-5 of each public game.

> 43A switch between private and public responses is coded as 1 if the adolescent changed their answer in response to any one of the three statements.

> 44Note as many as 91% of the study sample correctly identified the line in private.

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Where _Modei_ is a dummy variable that is defined to either equal 1 if the _n −_ 1 response or the modal response was different from the answer respondent _i_ gave in private and 0 otherwise. This setup allows us to understand how previous responses by others in the same team change the way respondents answer publicly and whether this is affected by the program.<sup>45</sup> _NumChoicesi_ again controls for the number of adolescents assigned to the _Choices_ treatment within the team excluding adolescent _i_ to account for peer effects. As before, we run these regressions for the only boys and only girls samples separately to check for heterogeneity by respondent’s sex.

# **Leadership**

In the analysis of program impacts on the likelihood of being chosen as a team leader we estimate the following OLS regression: _Yi_ is the outcome variable for whether adolescent _i_ was selected by their team to be the team leader. As before, _CHOICESi_ is an indicator variable for whether adolescent _i_ is randomly assigned to receive the Choices training (with or without the parental EMB component). _Femalei_ is a dummy variable equal to 1 if adolescent _i_ is female and _CHOICES ∗ Femalei_ as an interaction term between treatment status and respondent sex. The coefficient _β_ 1 measures the impact of the CHOICES training for boys, relative to the control group; _β_ 2 gives the gender differential among control group adolescents, and _β_ 3 is the treatment differential effect of _Choices_ between girls and boys. To account for peer effects we include a control variable _NumChoicesi_ in the regression which is the number of treatment adolescents within a team, excluding adolescent _i_ . _Xi_ is a vector of baseline control variables as was included in the specification for the main survey - multiple adolescents in the household and adolescent age. _λd_ are district-level fixed effects, _γt_ are team composition controls (indicators for all boys, all girls, or mixed-gender teams), and _εi_ is the error term. Standard errors are clustered at the team level.

> 45In the line match game when analyzing the outcome for _strong conformity_ , _Modei_ is a dummy variable for whether the previous or modal response for those adolescents in the positions before adolescent _i_ answer incorrectly (A or C). For the outcome _weak conformity_ , _Modei_ is a dummy variable for whether the previous or modal response for those adolescents in the positions before adolescent _i_ answer the other correct answer. In the confederates game, _Modei_ for the outcome _stick to your guns_ is a dummy variable for whether any adolescent in the positions before adolescent _i_ answered line C (correct answer); for _confused_ , _Modei_ is a dummy variable for whether any adolescent in the positions before adolescent _i_ answered line B or D (incorrect answer not primed); and for _conform_ , _Modei_ is a dummy variable for whether any adolescent in the positions before adolescent _i_ answered line A (incorrect answer primed).

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# **7 Results**

In the following section we present results using the estimation framework outlined in equations E1-E4 to examine the _Choices_ and marginal _EMB_ treatment effects. We estimate the effects on adolescent-level outcomes on: (1) self-reported gender equitable attitudes in private, (2) on perceived norms and social conformity as observed in the lab-in-the-field sessions; and (3) on behaviors, including time spent on household chores, caring behaviors, mental health, schooling, and leadership outcomes. In the Appendix we examine the direct _EMB_ impacts on parents’ gender equitable attitudes and behaviors. Results at both midline and endline are presented in the results tables.

## **7.1 Impacts on Gender Equitable Attitudes**

Table 2 shows the treatment effect of the _Choices_ gender norms training on adolescent gender equitable attitudes. The outcomes in Table 2 include an index that aggregates personal beliefs across 14 gender attitude statements and 3 sub-indices focusing on one specific domain each (see further details on the construction of these indices and statements in Figure 5 and Table A5 in the Appendix). We find that _Choices_ led respondents to report more egalitarian gender attitudes. Overall, adolescents assigned to receive the _Choices_ treatment have a 0.05 standard deviation (s.d.) higher attitudes index than those in the control group at endline (Panel A), and a 0.07 s.d. higher index at midline (Panel B), relative to the control group as shown in Table 2, column 1. Columns 2 and 3 present impacts by gender. _Choices_ had a positive impact on the gender attitudes of both adolescent boys and girls in the short-run and in the longer-run this effect persists for girls. The effect on the full attitudes index is no longer statistically significant for boys at endline.

Decomposing the full-index into three sub-themes (right to education, women’s role and masculinity), however, suggests the effect on attitudes for boys merely persists at endline in the education domain. Table 2 column 4 suggests that the _Choices_ treatment leads to a 0.12 s.d. increase in boys’ gender progressiveness with respect to the right to education at endline. However, boys’ attitudes towards women’s role and masculinity norms (columns 6 and 8) are not statistically different from the control group. Girls who were assigned to the _Choices_ treatment expressed higher gender equitable attitudes across a greater number of sub-themes. For example, attitudes related to education increase by 0.14 s.d. at endline (0.10 s.d. at midline), and by 0.09 s.d. for attitudes related to women’s role at endline (0.12 at midline).<sup>46</sup> To help interpret the magnitude of _Choices_ ’ effect on attitudes, we can translate the results in terms of changes in the proportion of the sample with gender egalitarian attitudes. The effect size suggests that the share of adolescents with egalitarian attitudes towards gender equality (across all 14 statements) increased from around 50% at baseline to 56% at endline in the _Choices_ treatment group. In Appendix Table A5 we also decompose the index into its individual statements and estimate any differences between treatment and control 46 Masculinity norms appear stickier and do not seem to have changed, however, attitudes towards a girl’s right to education appears more malleable.

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Table 2: Impact on Adolescent Gender Equitable Attitudes

||Gender E<br>Stan|Full-Index<br>quitable A<br>dardized I|ttitudes<br>ndex|Educ<br>Attitu<br>Sub-I|ation<br>des<br>ndex|Women<br>Attitu<br>Sub-I|'s Role<br>des<br>ndex|Sub-<br>Masculi<br>Attit|Index<br>ty Norms<br>udes|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All<br>(1)|Boys<br>(2)|Girls<br>(3)|Boys<br>(4)|Girls<br>(5)|Boys<br>(6)|Girls<br>(7)|Boys<br>(8)|Girls<br>(9)|
|Panel A: Endline||||||||||
|_CHOICES_|0.051**|0.029|0.075***|0.115***|0.137***|0.026|0.089**|-0.029|0.031|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[0.03]|[0.43]|[0.01]|[0.00]|[0.01]|[1.00]|[0.01]|[0.41]|[0.34]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|0.019|-0.016|0.043|-0.011|0.021|-0.052|0.032|-0.005|0.054**|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[0.67]|[1.00]|[0.19]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.26]|[0.99]|[1.00]|[0.05]|
|Control group mean|-0.00|-0.02|0.01|-0.04|0.02|-0.01|0.01|0.00|0.00|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.07|0.06|0.08|0.07|0.08|0.04|0.04|0.02|0.02|
|<br>Observations|2,643|1,285|1,358|1,285|1,358|1,285|1,358|1,285|1,358|
|ANCOVA|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Panel B: Midline||||||||||
|_CHOICES_|0.066***|0.064**|0.073**|0.075|0.104*|0.030|0.116***|0.039|0.047|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.05)|(0.06)|(0.04)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[0.01]|[0.04]|[0.02]|[0.17]|[0.08]|[0.89]|[0.00]|[0.20]|[0.14]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|-0.002|-0.002|-0.014|-0.019|-0.012|-0.013|0.013|-0.041|-0.026|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.05)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.26]|[0.47]|
|Control group mean|-0.01|-0.05|0.03|-0.08|0.09|-0.00|0.02|-0.01|-0.00|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.06|0.07|0.06|0.10|0.11|0.06|0.06|0.02|0.02|
|<br>Observations|1,987|939|1,048|939|1,048|939|1,048|939|1,048|
|ANCOVA|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|

Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% level (1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was invited to attend the CHOICES training (assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups). EMB=1 if adolescent was in CHOICES+EMB group, effectively giving the marginal impact of the EMB program in addition to the CHOICES program. (2) ANCOVA estimation controls for the level of the outcome variable. All regressions include district fixed effects and a set of controls measured at baseline: dummy for whether household has multiple adolescents and age of respondent.

(3) Standard errors are clustered at the community level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. Sharpened q-values that correct p-values for the false discovery rate (FDR) are in square brackets. A sharpened q-value of 1.00 indicates the null hypothesis is not rejected at any level of FDR.

(4) Outcomes: Gender Equitable Index is a standardized index of 14 gender-progressive statements the respondent agrees with (index standardized as per method from Kling et al. 2007). Higher scores indicate more gender-equitable attitudes. The education sub-index, women's role sub-index, and masculinity norms sub-index are constructed from (mutually exclusive) statements in the Gender Equitable Index.

19
at baseline, midline and endline.<sup>47</sup> For example, we show that significantly more _Choices_ participants disagree that dowry is more important for the family’s esteem rather than having educated daughter at endline. Overall, our results suggest variation in the types of attitudes that were influenced by the _Choices_ intervention. The program was mostly successful in shifting beliefs to be more gender progressive with respect to a girl’s right to education and a women’s role in the economic sphere.

_Choices_ adolescents whose parents were also invited to attend the EMB training saw no additional impact on their overall gender equitable attitudes. _Choices_ girls whose parents also attended the EMB training were more likely to express more progressive masculinity norms. In Appendix Table A9 we also show there is a positive treatment effect at midline and endline on a standardized index that is composed of the 3 gender statements that were included in the lab-in-the-field experiment.<sup>48</sup> The private responses in the lab context were overall more gender egalitarian than the average responses captured during the endline survey and treatment effect sizes are higher in magnitude. This may reflect a certain comfort that the adolescents had within the lab session held around peers, peer pressure, or for other reasons. Importantly, since the private and public responses were measured within the same lab session, results should be considered internally valid.

# **7.2 Impacts on Conformity (Private vs. Public Responses)**

In the following we analyze the social dynamics of how an adolescents’ views are influenced by others around them using an experiment that measured attitudes in private vs. public. Our measure of conformity considers whether the adolescent changes their response from private to public based on the responses of others and by having to respond publicly. For the games we randomize: (i) the gender composition of the team i.e. all boys, all girls or mixedgender teams; and, (ii) the position that the adolescent responds in public. This allows us to estimate both group effects and position effects.<sup>49</sup> Individual private responses were first taken from each adolescent after they were randomly assigned to their team. Next, various conformity games were played in teams of 5 adolescents in public. The gender composition of peers that adolescent _i_ is grouped with and what their peers say in the positions in front of adolescent _i_ can be considered exogenous. We are interested in perceived normative pressures and whether _Choices_ adolescents are influenced by their peers in the same way as the control.

## **7.2.1 Gender Statements**

Tables 3A, 3B and 3C present the results for the gender statements where we observe social dynamics specific to gender attitudes. In Table 3A we examine group effects, in Table 3B position effects, and in Table 3C the direction of switching (egalitarian-discriminatory) from private to public. Our sample consists of all adolescents in the lab-in-the-field experiment.<sup>50</sup>

> 47Note sample size is different in Table 2 and Table A5 as A5 includes the panel of respondents.

> 48Table A9 compares effect sizes for endline survey data to the lab-in-the-field games data.

> 49The team members were randomly seated in a row to sequentially answer 3 gender attitudes statements and 2 line match games. In each subsequent game the position of the adolescent was re-randomized.

> 50The sample size for the experimental sessions is 1,000 respondents with 994 in the analysis as position was not recorded accurately for 6. With 3 different statements this makes 2,982 observations in Table 3A.

20
Table 3A: Impact on Social Conformity Outcomes (Group Conformity Effects) Gender Statement Game

|||**Private**|**(Egalitarian**<br>**(All Pos**|**Gender At**<br>**itions)**|**titudes)**|||**Public (**|**Egalitarian**<br>**(All Po**|**Gender At**<br>**sitions)**|**titudes)**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|(10)|(11)|(12)|
|CHOICES (0/1)|0.066***|0.060**|0.074***|0.056*|0.087**|0.068**|0.011|0.003|0.021|0.021|0.031|0.024|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.03)|
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.004|-0.003|0.007|-0.004|-0.003|0.007|0.018**|0.023**|0.015|0.019**|0.023**|0.015|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Mixed-gender teams|-0.066***|0.065***|-0.044**|-0.072**|0.102**|-0.052|-0.014|0.044*|-0.012|0.001|0.080*|-0.007|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.05)|(0.04)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.03)|
|Boys only team|-0.144***|||-0.159***|||-0.079***|||-0.086**|||
||(0.02)|||(0.05)|||(0.02)|||(0.04)|||
|CHOICES*Mixed-gender teams||||0.009|-0.051|0.013||||-0.022|-0.052|-0.006|
|||||(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.04)||||(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.04)|
|CHOICES*Boys only team||||0.021||||||0.009|||
|||||(0.05)||||||(0.05)|||
|Control group mean|0.75|0.72|0.78|0.75|0.72|0.78|0.80|0.78|0.81|0.80|0.78|0.81|
|Adjusted R-Squared|0.11|0.11|0.12|0.11|0.12|0.12|0.09|0.12|0.06|0.09|0.12|0.06|
|Observations<br>Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant a<br>(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to<br>(2) Standard errors are clustered at the individ<br>has multiple adolescents, the age of responde<br>randomized team gender composition (wheth<br>gender fixed effects.<br>(3) Outcomes: Private Egalitarian is a dummy<br>experimental games. Public Egalitarian is a du<br>(994 respondents) is slightly larger than in pub<br>(4) Table 7A columns (4)-(6) and (10)-(12) ana|2982<br>t 5% level **<br>CHOICES on<br>ual level and<br>nt, and peer<br>er team is mi<br>variable for w<br>mmy variabl<br>lic (979 resp<br>lyzes the gro|1473<br>* significant a<br>ly or CHOICE<br>are reported<br>effects given<br>xed-gender, b<br>hether the ad<br>e for whether<br>ondents) sinc<br>up dynamics|1509<br>t 1% level<br>S+EMB treat<br>under the co<br>by the numbe<br>oys only, and<br>olescent rep<br>the adolesce<br>e the public r<br>by treatment|2982<br>ment groups;<br>efficient in p<br>r of CHOICE<br>girls only) w<br>orted an ega<br>nt reported a<br>esponses of<br>that interact|1473<br>0 if in contro<br>arentheses.<br>S adolescen<br>here girls on<br>litarian respo<br>n egalitarian<br>3 teams (15<br>s the Choice|1509<br>l group.<br>All OLS regress<br>ts in the adole<br>ly is the omitt<br>nse to the ge<br>response to t<br>respondents)<br>s treatment d|2937<br>ions includes<br>scent's team<br>ed category in<br>nder statemen<br>he gender sta<br>were missing<br>ummy with th|1446<br>district fixe<br>excluding th<br>the regress<br>ts in private<br>tements in a<br>.<br>e gender co|1491<br>d effects an<br>e responden<br>ion, stateme<br>during regi<br>public grou<br>mposition of|2937<br>d controls fo<br>t (0-4). Regr<br>nt fixed effe<br>stration befo<br>p setting. Sa<br>the team.|1446<br>r whether h<br>essions con<br>cts and enu<br>re the start o<br>mple size in|1491<br>ousehold<br>trol for<br>merator-<br>f the lab<br>private|
Table 3B: Impact on Social Conformity Outcomes (Position Effects) Gender Statement Game

||**Sw**<br>**(A**|**itch in Pub**<br>**ll Position**|**lic**<br>**s)**|**Swi**<br>**(Po**|**tch in Pub**<br>**sitions 2**|**lic**<br>**-5)**|**S**<br>**(Positions 2-**<br>**before int**|**witch in Publi**<br>**5 and respons**<br>**eracted with t**|**c**<br>**e in position**<br>**reatment)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|
|CHOICES (0/1)|-0.045**|-0.044|-0.049**|-0.043**|-0.031|-0.056**|-0.016|0.008|-0.041*|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.003|0.003|-0.010|0.003|0.018|-0.013|0.003|0.018|-0.012|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Mixed-gender teams|0.085***|0.000|0.082***|0.076***|-0.007|0.070***|0.039*|0.007|0.040*|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
|Boys only team|0.086**|||0.083**|||0.039|||
||(0.03)|||(0.04)|||(0.03)|||
|Response of position before different to i's private response|||||||0.513***|0.613***|0.420***|
||||||||(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.06)|
|CHOICES*Response of position before different|||||||-0.078*|-0.202***|0.038|
||||||||(0.05)|(0.06)|(0.07)|
|Control group mean|0.24|0.28|0.21|0.25|0.27|0.23|0.25|0.27|0.23|
|Adjusted R-Squared|0.10|0.07|0.11|0.10|0.07|0.13|0.30|0.29|0.31|
|Observations|2937|1446|1491|2352|1151|1201|2352|1151|1201|

Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% level (1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups; 0 if in control group.

(2) Standard errors are clustered at the individual level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. All OLS regressions includes district fixed effects and controls for whether household has multiple adolescents, the age of respondent, and peer effects given by the number of CHOICES adolescents in the adolescent's team excluding the respondent (0-4). Regressions control for randomized team gender composition (whether team is mixed-gender, boys only, and girls only) where girls only is the omitted category in the regression, statement fixed effects and enumeratorgender fixed effects.

(3) Outcomes: Switch in Public is whether the adolescent changed her privately held belief when in a public group setting (=1 if adolescent changed their private response in public; 0 if stuck with their private response). A negative coefficient of being less likely to change in public is indicative of demonstrating greater non-conformist behavior.

(4) Table 3B columns (7) to (9) analyzes the influence of position that you play the game by interacting the CHOICES treatment dummy variable with a dummy variable that equals 1 if the public response of the individual seated in the position before adolescent i is different to i's private response.
Table 3C: Impact on Social Conformity Outcomes (Direction of Switching) Gender Statement Game

||**Alw**<br>**in Pri**<br>**(**|**ays Egalitar**<br>**vate and in**<br>**Positions 2-**|**ian**<br>**Public**<br>**5)**|**Alwa**<br>**in Pri**<br>**(**|**ys Discrimi**<br>**vate and in**<br>**Positions 2-**|**natory**<br>**Public**<br>**5)**|**Egalitaria**<br>**Sw**<br>**(P**|**n to Discri**<br>**itch in Pub**<br>**ositions 2-**|**minatory**<br>**lic**<br>**5)**|**Discrimin**<br>**Sw**<br>**(P**|**atory to Eg**<br>**itch in Publi**<br>**ositions 2-5**|**alitarian**<br>**c**<br>**)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|(10)|(11)|(12)|
|CHOICES (0/1)|0.031|0.013|0.054**|0.000|0.016|-0.017|-0.004|0.004|-0.015|-0.031|-0.102|0.073|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.05)|(0.07)|(0.09)|
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.004|-0.017|0.014|-0.001|-0.004|-0.002|-0.008|-0.001|-0.013|0.031|0.054**|-0.006|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Mixed-gender teams|-0.043*|0.021|-0.041*|-0.027*|-0.031*|-0.024|0.016|0.019|0.018|0.154**|0.028|0.128*|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.07)|(0.07)|(0.08)|
|Boys only team|-0.063*|||0.002|||0.003|||0.125|||
||(0.04)|||(0.02)|||(0.03)|||(0.09)|||
|Discriminatory response in position before|-0.446***|-0.464***|-0.425***|0.241***|0.299***|0.187***|0.421***|0.535***|0.365***|-0.333***|-0.411***|-0.199*|
||(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.06)|(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.05)|(0.06)|(0.10)|(0.08)|(0.07)|(0.10)|(0.11)|
|CHOICES*Discriminatory response in position before|0.102**|0.201***|0.001|-0.056|-0.178**|0.056|-0.119*|-0.265**|-0.029|0.014|0.186|-0.215*|
||(0.05)|(0.07)|(0.08)|(0.05)|(0.07)|(0.06)|(0.07)|(0.11)|(0.10)|(0.09)|(0.12)|(0.13)|
|Control group mean|0.66|0.62|0.69|0.09|0.10|0.08|0.13|0.14|0.12|0.61|0.62|0.60|
|Adjusted R-Squared|0.25|0.22|0.28|0.14|0.15|0.15|0.21|0.19|0.23|0.18|0.18|0.20|
|Observations|2352|1151|1201|2352|1151|1201|1861|870|991|491|281|210|

Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% level (1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups; 0 if in control group.

(2) Standard errors are clustered at the individual level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. All OLS regressions includes district fixed effects and controls for whether household has multiple adolescents, the age of respondent, and peer effects given by the number of CHOICES adolescents in the adolescent's team excluding the respondent (0-4). Regressions control for randomized team gender composition (whether team is mixed-gender, boys only, and girls only) where girls only is the omitted category in the regression, statement fixed effects and enumerator-gender fixed effects.

(3) Outcomes: Always Egalitarian is a dummy variable for whether the adolescent reported an egalitarian response to the gender statements in private and in public. Always Discriminatory is whether the adolescent gave a discriminatory response in private and in public. Egalitarian to Discriminatory Switch in Public is whether the adolescent changed her privately held belief when in a public group setting from an egalitarian view to discriminatory view; Discriminatory to Egalitarian Switch in Public is whether the adolescent changed her privately held belief when in a public group setting from a discriminatory view to an egalitarian view (=1 if adolescent changed their private response in public; 0 if stuck with their private response). Sample size in columns 7-12 is lower than k in coulmns 1-6 since we condition the analysis on being egalitarian (7-9) or discriminatory (10-12) in private and then examine where there is a switch in public.

(4) Sample is restricted to those adolescents in positions 2-5 to analyze position effects. The influence of position that you play the game is analyzed by interacting the CHOICES treatment dummy variable with a dummy variable that equals 1 if the public response of the individual seated in the position before adolescent i is discriminatory.
While we encourage future research to explore the extent of normative pressure and conformity with different reference groups, here we are interested in how the gender composition of their peer group as well as what a peer in the position just ahead of them said influences their responses; and how _Choices_ affects that influence.<sup>51</sup> In Table 3A, columns 1-3 present the results for the private responses where the outcome is a dummy variable for whether adolescent _i_ gives a gender egalitarian response to the statement in private.<sup>52</sup> We show that the _Choices_ treatment increases the likelihood that the adolescent gives a gender egalitarian response to any of the 3 gender attitudes; a treatment effect of 6.6 percentage point (pp) increase in egalitarian attitudes.<sup>53</sup> In columns 2 and 3 we split the sample by respondent sex. The treatment effect is statistically significant for both adolescent boys and girls separately.

Table 3A also shows the group effects; namely the coefficients on _mixed-gender teams_ and _boys only team_ . In column 1, the private attitudes of individuals in the girls-only team (the omitted category) is significantly more gender egalitarian than individuals in the mixedgender or boys-only teams.<sup>54</sup> Decomposing this by the sex of the respondent (columns 2 and 3) we show the group effects for boys and girls point in opposite directions. That is, when boys are in a mixed team they are more likely to state privately gender egalitarian attitudes (6.5pp) than in a team with all boys. When girls are in a mixed team they are more likely to state privately discriminatory response (-4.4pp) than in a team with all girls. Our findings indicate significant social influence based on the sex-composition of the group. Even without communication, we find adolescents altering what attitudes are expressed in private. Boys respond to the presence of girls by giving more egalitarian responses and the opposite is true for girls. This may mean that girls and boys experience different types of social influence and that social desirability bias might go in opposite directions. In columns 4-6 we also interact the team composition dummy variables with the _Choices_ treatment dummy and do not find a differential impact.

In Table 3A columns 7-12 we turn to the responses given in public where the outcome is a dummy variable for whether adolescent _i_ gives a gender egalitarian response in the public group setting. On average, we find no evidence that _Choices_ adolescents have greater egalitarian attitudes in public, relative to the control group. For boys, in Table 3A column 8 the public response is positively influenced by the number of other _Choices_ peers in their team. The group-conformity effects based on the gender composition of the team seen in private still matter, but less so in public. Boys in mixed-gender teams are more gender egalitarian than boys in the all-boys teams in public. As was seen in private, we find that _Choices_ does not differentially impact the extent of group conformity in public.

In summary, when answering in private, boys and girls give more egalitarian responses if

> 51The reference group in our lab-in-the-field experiments are other adolescent peers randomly assigned to the same team. We concede that those who are non-conformist in the lab setting may conform in other settings where social sanctions or disapproval are a bigger threat. For example, perhaps if the reference group were parents, siblings, teachers, or other adults in the community we might expect different social dynamics as to what is found among peers.

> 52The 3 gender statements games are pooled in the regression analysis.

> 53Note the control group mean for the 3 attitudes in the lab experiment in Table 3A column 1 is 75% which is relatively egalitarian.

5482% of responses for girls in the control group who are randomized into the all girls team are egalitarian, compared with 67% of control group boys allocated to the all boys team.

24
they participated in _Choices_ . The contexts of (i) _Choices_ peers and (ii) mixed-gender teams both encourage boys to give more egalitarian responses. In public, boys give more egalitarian responses if there are more _Choices_ peers in their group. Perhaps boys with more _Choices_ peers in their group are more confident that their peers will give egalitarian responses or more confident that they will not be sanctioned for giving egalitarian responses themselves. Whereas for girls, the presence of _Choices_ peers has minimal impact and mixed-gender teams encourage less egalitarian responses. This suggests that normative pressures from peers are different for boys and girls.<sup>55</sup> Taken together these results suggest that group dynamics are important and that there is some attitudinal change occurring between private and public. In Table 3B the outcome indicates whether there was any switch in response from private to public i.e. dummy variable equals 1 if the adolescent switched from being egalitarian in private to discriminatory in public, or 1 if the adolescent switched from being discriminatory in private and egalitarian in public; and 0 if the adolescent gave the same response in public as in private.<sup>56</sup> When adolescents are asked their attitudes publicly, some adjust their responses to conform to the peers around them (24% of the control group switch their responses in public from what they reported in private). The negative coefficient in Table 3B column 1 on the _Choices_ treatment dummy suggests the program reduces the likelihood that an adolescent changes their response when publicly stating a gender attitude in the presence of a group of randomly selected peers. We show that _Choices_ adolescents are, on average, more likely to be egalitarian in private and, more importantly, they are more likely to stick to those egalitarian beliefs when asked to state them in public.

In the following we examine position effects i.e. the influence of hearing the attitudes of others in public in the positions before you.<sup>57</sup> In Table 3B columns 4-9 we examine the _Switch in Public_ outcome for the adolescents’ seated in the 2nd to 5th positions to explore whether adolescents change their opinion from private to public based on the responses of adolescents in the preceding position(s).<sup>58</sup> The negative coefficient on _Choices_ in column 4 suggests that results hold after restricting the sample to adolescents in positions 2-5 only. We find _Choices_ adolescents randomly positioned in seats 2-5 are less likely to change their response when publicly stating gender attitudes, relative to the control group. In columns 7-9 we test if the adolescents are more or less likely to change their attitudes based on the public response of the person in the preceding position to adolescent i being different to what i said in private and interact this with treatment. The coefficient on the position variable is positive and significant which suggests that when the attitude of the person seated in the position before i is different to what i privately said, there is a greater likelihood that adolescent i changes their response in public i.e. there is a greater tendency to conform to the

> 55Comparing the control group means in Table 3A suggests that the private vs. public mean for boys is statistically significantly different.

> 56In Table 3B we simply interpret a switch as indicative of conformist behavior, and in Table 3C we further explore the direction of the switch.

> 57In the analysis for position effects we include controls for the team sex-composition and do not interact with treatment.

> 58Those in position 1 are not affected by hearing the responses given by peers in their group but might be affected by having their own response being heard in public. Perhaps those who change their response in public in position 1 may be inclined to do so because of social desirability, for example, by claiming a more gender egalitarian/discriminatory response to a statement in a group vs what was said in private.

25
responses of those who are positioned before you.<sup>59</sup> In columns 11 and 12 we show the results disaggregated by sex. _Choices_ boys in positions 2-5 are less likely to switch their response in public, especially when the response of those in the preceding position is different to what they privately said (the interaction term is significant at 99% confidence). The influence of a different prior response is diminished for _Choices_ boys - they are more likely to stick to their personal beliefs even when the person positioned before them disagrees with them. _Choices_ girls are also less likely to change their response in public than the control group. However, this does not seem to be influenced by the responses of those in the preceding positions. That is, _Choices_ girls are less likely to switch their response in public irrespective of what was said in the position before. In mixed-gender teams, however, girls are more likely to switch their response in public.

In Table 3C we unpack the direction of the _Switch in Public_ outcome presented in Table 3B.<sup>60</sup> First, in Table 3C columns 1-3 the outcome _Always Egalitarian_ is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the adolescent _i_ gave a gender egalitarian attitude in private _and_ in public; and in columns 4-6 _Always Discriminatory_ is a discriminatory attitude in private and public. We find interesting _Choices_ effects. Both _Choices_ boys and girls have a higher probability of being in the _Always Egalitarian_ (private egal – public egal) category compared to adolescents in the control group (see grey bars in Figure 7 multinomial logit in the Appendix). _Choices_ boys are less likely to be influenced by a gender discriminatory prior response than boys in the control group where _Choices_ boys are more likely to be _Always Egalitarian_ by sticking to privately-held egalitarian attitudes in public (for boys the _Always Egalitarian_ outcome in column 2 shows a positive and significant coefficient on CHOICES interacted with the prior response, and conversely for _Always Discriminatory_ in column 5 this coefficient is negative and significant). _Choices_ girls are more likely to be _Always Egalitarian_ and are not differently influenced by the responses of those in the preceding positions than control group girls.

In terms of the switchers, in Table 3C columns 7-12 we condition the analysis on being privately egalitarian (7-9) or privately discriminatory (10-12). We show a higher likelihood to switch and conform to a discriminatory view in public if the person before you gives a discriminatory response, and a lower likelihood to switch to an egalitarian view if the person before you gives a discriminatory response. Among boys, column 8 suggests that _Choices_ boys (but not girls) are less influenced by a prior response to switch from egalitarian to discriminatory; and column 11 suggests the _Choices_ peer effects point to an egalitarian shift - boys are more likely to switch from privately discriminatory to publicly egalitarian when they had a greater number of _Choices_ adolescents in their team. Table 3C column 12 suggests that _Choices_ girls who were discriminatory in private are even less likely to switch to an egalitarian attitude in public when the prior response was discriminatory than the

> 59In the Appendix Table A8 we show results are robust to considering the responses of the majority in the preceding positions being different to i’s private response i.e. the “mode” of responses. Results in Table 3B columns 7-9 are robust to using the modal response i.e. when 50 percent or more of the responses in the preceding positions in the row are different to adolescent i’s private response. Note for the adolescents seated in odd positions the mode was taken to be n-1 when exactly 50 percent of the public responses in the preceding positions are different to i’s private response. The results no longer hold when consider “any” responses being different.

> 60Figure 7 in the Appendix shows the predicted probabilities from a multinomial logistic regression which is a useful visualization of the dynamics of what is occurring in private vs. public.

26
control group.

In summary, Table 3C suggests that having participated in _Choices_ encouraged boys to stick with an egalitarian response in the face of opposing discriminatory views, presumably because _Choices_ made boys think that expressing such views would lead to greater social approval or lower chances of disapproval. Another way of saying this is that the presence of _Choices_ peers and the presence of girls make boys more likely to think that their peers are egalitarian. For girls, the effect is driven by _Choices_ both encouraging girls to stick with an egalitarian private view in public, and affirming girls who gave a discriminatory response in private to not switch to egalitarian in public especially when the prior response was discriminatory. In other words, _Choices_ convinced some girls with discriminatory attitudes that they could defend those attitudes in public. While _Choices_ encouraged more egalitarian private attitudes among girls and they stick to those convictions, there is not a lot of evidence that it convinced (more) girls that egalitarian responses are the popular ones among these peers. Perhaps there are social influences that are pushing girls in opposing directions.

We consider a number of potential mechanisms through which the program could influence an individual’s response: personal attitudinal change, change in perceived egalitarianism of peers, change in perceived likelihood of positive/negative sanctions for expressing egalitarian ideals, or change in willingness to endure sanctions for expressing egalitarian ideals. We see evidence of the personal attitudinal change for boys and girls. There is evidence that _Choices_ changed some aspect of perceived norms for boys, but minimal evidence of this channel for girls. In Table A1 we present some explicit measures of perceived community norms that asks “out of 10 of your neighbors how many would believe...” (related to women’s work out of the home and child marriage). We show that while _Choices_ girls perceive slightly more support for women’s work out of the home from their community, there are limited changes in their overall perceptions of norms among the community.<sup>61</sup> Taken together, this means that, when adolescents are asked their attitudes publicly, they are inclined to adjust their responses to conform to those in the positions before them (see positive coefficient on “Response of position before different to i’s private response” in Table 3B). In public there are higher average gender egalitarian attitudes reported by everyone largely driven by _Choices_ adolescents being more likely to be privately egalitarian and sticking with that view in public. Control group adolescents are more likely to be egalitarian in public than in private, which suggests a shift towards a more egalitarian group norm perhaps since these became the dominant attitudes set within the lab.<sup>62</sup> We refer to _Choices_ adolescents as “non-conformist” in reference to sticking to a privately held view in public, even when faced with opposing views. In the subsequent line match conformity games we provide evidence that our results do not reflect general adolescent rebellion as the treatment effects on non-conformity are only found in the gender domain.

> 61Girls’ perceptions of community norms are, on average, similar to parents’ perceptions of the same norm. 62It may be possible to alter the attitudes of a few key actors in small close-knit groups to leverage positive feedback effects from social interactions.

27
# **7.2.2 Asch Conformity Experiment - Line Match 1 Game**

Table 4 presents the results from line match 1 game designed to replicate the Asch (1952) conformity experiments.<sup>63</sup> In the line match 1 game we do not prime subjects (i.e. actors or confederates) but modify the game to have 2 lines of equal size to create a 50-50 chance of picking one of the correct answers (lines B and D). In Table 4 columns 1-3 the outcome is a dummy variable for whether the adolescent was privately correct when matching the line. Column 1 suggests that adolescents were correct in their response 91% of the time i.e. when responding to an enumerator in private, about 9% make a mistake and wrongly match the line. We do not find a _Choices_ treatment effect on the likelihood the adolescent gave a correct response to the line match game in private.<sup>64</sup> To examine conformity we define two outcomes: weak and strong conformity. Where _weak conformity_ is a dummy variable that indicates the adolescent changed their response in public to what was said in private but that response was still correct (i.e. a change from B to D, or D to B). Here we examine whether adolescents in the positions that precede you in the line-up influence your response. We restrict the sample to those adolescents in positions 2-5 as before and interact treatment with the modal public response of those in the preceding positions to adolescent i being the opposite correct answer to i’s private answer.<sup>65</sup> We label this weak conformity as we consider a change to the responses of those in the preceding positions still conformist behavior, even if both answers are correct. _Strong conformity_ is a dummy variable that indicates the adolescent changed their response in public to what was said in private but their public response was incorrect (i.e. change from B or D in private to C or A in public). For the strong conformity outcome we similarly restrict the sample to adolescents in positions 2-5 and interact the treatment dummy with the modal response of those in the preceding positions to adolescent i being an incorrect answer.

The results suggest that 26% of the control group demonstrate weak conformist behavior and 20% demonstrate strong conformist behavior. We find no evidence of a _Choices_ treatment effect on weak or strong conformity for the line match 1 game. Similar to the Asch experimental findings, we find participants are more likely to respond incorrectly when asked to respond in public i.e. 9% incorrectly matched the line in private, whereas in public 20% incorrectly matched the line. Interestingly, we find that the modal response of what adolescents say in the preceding positions is positive and significant for the girls sample (see column 9). That is, adolescent girls were more influenced by the responses of adolescents in the preceding positions and were more likely to change their response to an incorrect answer when most of the responses were incorrect in the positions before them in the random lineup. Since girls are more influenced by the prior responses, this indicates that girls could be more sensitive to social pressure in this game (and possibly more broadly).

> 63See the Appendix for further details on the design of the conformity games.

> 64This is reassuring since we would not expect to find a treatment effect on accuracy.

> 65We exclude those adolescents who gave an incorrect response in private as their public response may be measuring something different to conformity.

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– Table 4: Impact on Social Conformity Outcomes (Group and Position Effects) Asch Line Match 1 Game

|**_Social Conformity - Line Match Game 1_**|**_Private_**|**_Correct Line_**<br>**_(B D)_**|**_Match_**|<br>**_Change in_**|**_Weak Conform_**<br>**_Public from B_**|**_ity_**<br>**_to D or D to B_**|**_Str_**<br>**_Change in Pub_**|**_ong Conform_**<br>**_lic from B or_**|**_ity_**<br>**_D to incorrect_**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**_or_**||**_(P_**|**_ositions 2-5_**|**_only)_**|**_(Po_**|**_sitions 2-5 o_**|**_nly)_**|
||All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|
|CHOICES|-0.019|0.002|-0.038|0.024|0.028|0.023|-0.004|0.004|-0.023|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.05)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.04)|
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.020|-0.052***|0.003|-0.002|-0.013|0.012|0.010|-0.009|0.033|
||(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
|Mixed-gender teams|-0.005|0.021|-0.005|-0.100**|0.056|-0.107**|-0.023|0.074|-0.020|
||(0.04)|(0.04)|(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|
|Boys only team|-0.045|||-0.158**|||-0.077|||
||(0.06)|||(0.07)|||(0.07)|||
|Response of position before is other correct answer||||0.226***|0.184*|0.271***||||
|||||(0.07)|(0.10)|(0.10)||||
|CHOICES # Response of position before is other correct answer||||0.010|0.112|-0.091||||
|||||(0.08)|(0.12)|(0.13)||||
|Response of position before is an incorrect answer|||||||0.331***|0.131|0.481***|
||||||||(0.10)|(0.14)|(0.12)|
|CHOICES # Response of positions before is an incorrect answer|||||||-0.004|0.195|-0.172|
||||||||(0.10)|(0.15)|(0.14)|
|Control group mean|0.90|0.90|0.91|0.26|0.22|0.29|0.21|0.16|0.24|
|Adjusted R-Squared|0.02|0.05|0.00|0.08|0.08|0.07|0.18|0.22|0.18|
|Observations<br>Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% l|994<br>evel|491|503|697|351|346|697|351|346|

(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups; 0 if in control group.

(2) Standard errors are clustered at the session-team level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. All OLS regressions includes district fixed effects and controls for whether household has multiple adolescents, the age of respondent, and peer effects given by the number of CHOICES adolescents in the adolescent's team excluding the respondent (0-4). Regressions control for randomized team gender composition (mixed-gender, boys only, and girls only where girls only is the omitted category), and enumerator-gender fixed effects.

(3) Outcomes Weak Conformity and Strong Conformity are restricted to the adolescents in positions 2-5 who correctly matched the line when responding in private. 90% were correct in private. (4) Position effects for the outcome "Weak conformity" in columns (4) to (6) are estimated by the influence of the response in the position before i being the other correct answer (i.e. B if you said D in private, or D if you said B in private). "Strong conformity" position effects in (7) to (9) are estimated by the response of the previous position being an incorrect answer (A or C).
# **7.2.3 Asch Conformity Experiment - Line Match Confederates Game**

Table 5 presents the results from the line match confederates game. In this game there is only one correct answer (line C). However, each team’s leader and deputy were instructed to act as confederates and state an incorrect answer (A) when playing the game with their team in public.<sup>66</sup> The leader and deputy were asked to sit in positions 1 and 2, respectively, with the remaining three team members seated in a random order.<sup>67</sup> The results in Table 5 column 1 suggests that 80% of the control group correctly matched the line for this game in private with no treatment differences. In the remaining columns in Table 5 we define 3 outcomes: _stick to your guns_ if correct in public (C), _confused_ if incorrect in public but was not the primed response (B or D); and _conform_ if incorrect in public and responded with the primed response (A).

When answering in private only 20% incorrectly matched the line, whereas when in public as many as 57% incorrectly matched the line. In the following we exclude the responses by the leader and deputy who were primed to answer incorrectly and show results for adolescents in positions 3-5 only. In column 4 we show that 43% stick to the correct answer in the public game. While we find no _Choices_ treatment difference, the coefficient on the variable _Any response in positions before correct answer C_ is positive and significant. This suggests that the adolescents were more inclined to give the correct answer in public when any adolescent before them in the line-up gave a correct response. In column 7 we show that 32% of the control group were perhaps confused in public. They give an incorrect answer in public but it was not what the leader and deputy said. Similarly, in column 10 we show that 24% of the control group switch to conform and answer the primed response (A) in the public game. For both these outcomes we find no evidence of a _Choices_ treatment effect. The coefficients on the variable _Any response in positions before correct answer C_ for the _confused_ and _conform_ outcomes in columns 7-12 are negative and significant. This suggests that the adolescents (especially for girls in columns 9 and 12) were less likely to give an incorrect response in public when an adolescent before them in the line-up gave a correct response.

Overall, the results in Tables 4 and 5 provide evidence of conformity among adolescent peers as was found in the Asch experiments. However, _Choices_ participation does not affect how adolescents play the line match games and therefore _Choices_ does not appear to affect general levels of conformity.

We also find no _Choices_ treatment effect in the response to the survey statement: “There have been times when I felt like rebelling against people in authority even though I knew they were right.” We measure results at midline and endline (not shown here). Therefore, put together our results suggest no indication of increased rebellion among _Choices_ adolescents. The _Choices_ program did affect private gender attitudes and it did affect public reports of gender attitudes in ways that suggest that adolescents’ perceptions of gender norms (or acceptable responses) may have shifted in interesting ways that could theoretically be linked directly to the program content on gender equality.

> 66Note - the line match confederates game was played at the very end of the session so that the leader and deputy could be primed outside before playing the final game in public.

> 67Asch (1952) showed that conformity increases when other members of the group are of a higher social status so we may expect conformity by the adolescents to be higher after the priming the leader and deputy.

30
– Table 5: Impact on Social Conformity Outcomes (Group and Position Effects) Asch Confederates Line Match Game

|**_Social Conformity _ Confederates Game_**|**_Private Co_**|**_rrect Line_**|**_Match (C)_**|**_Stick to y_**<br>**_in priva_**|**_our guns in_**<br>**_te and C in_**|**_public (C_**<br>**_public)_**|**_Confused in_**<br>**_and incorre_**|**_Public (C i_**<br>**_ct B or D i_**|**_n private_**<br>**_n public)_**|**_Conform in_**<br>**_and inco_**|**_Public (C_**<br>**_rrect A in_**|**_in private_**<br>**_public)_**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|All|Boys|Girls|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|(10)|(11)|(12)|
|CHOICES|0.039|0.072|0.009|-0.020|-0.062|0.007|-0.004|-0.005|-0.021|0.025|0.067|0.013|
||(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.08)|(0.07)|(0.05)|(0.08)|(0.06)|(0.06)|(0.08)|(0.08)|
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.011|-0.002|-0.021|0.009|-0.010|0.033|-0.023|-0.032|-0.036|0.014|0.042|0.003|
||(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.04)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.04)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.04)|(0.03)|
|Mixed-gender teams|0.001|0.056|-0.005|-0.067|0.045|-0.082|0.033|0.006|0.066|0.033|-0.051|0.016|
||(0.04)|(0.05)|(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.06)|(0.06)|(0.05)|(0.07)|(0.05)|(0.07)|(0.08)|(0.07)|
|Boys only team|-0.061|||-0.128|||0.039|||0.089|||
||(0.07)|||(0.08)|||(0.08)|||(0.10)|||
|Any response in positions before correct answer C||||0.455***|0.433***|0.464***|-0.177***|-0.247**|-0.136*|-0.278***|-0.185*|-0.329***|
|||||(0.08)|(0.13)|(0.11)|(0.07)|(0.11)|(0.08)|(0.07)|(0.11)|(0.10)|
|CHOICES # Any response in positions before correct answer C||||-0.076|-0.032|-0.097|0.051|0.041|0.094|0.026|-0.009|0.004|
|||||(0.08)|(0.14)|(0.12)|(0.07)|(0.12)|(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.13)|(0.12)|
|Control group mean|0.80|0.77|0.83|0.43|0.42|0.45|0.32|0.38|0.28|0.24|0.20|0.28|
|Adjusted R-Squared|0.03|0.06|0.00|0.29|0.28|0.29|0.30|0.28|0.32|0.06|0.03|0.09|
|Observations<br>Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant|994<br>at 1% level|491|503|469|221|248|469|221|248|469|221|248|

(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups; 0 if in control group.

(2) Standard errors are clustered at the session-team level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. All OLS regressions includes district fixed effects and controls for whether household has multiple adolescents, the age of respondent, and peer effects given by the number of CHOICES adolescents in the adolescent's team excluding the respondent (0-4). Regressions control for randomized team gender composition (mixed-gender, boys only, and girls only where girls only is the omitted category), and enumerator-gender fixed effects.

(3) Outcomes Stick to your guns, Confused in Public and Conform in Public are restricted to the adolescents in positions 3-5 who correctly matched the line when responding in private. 80% were correct in private. The leader and deputy sitting in positions 1 and 2 who were prompted to say A in public are excluded from the analysis.

(4) For the outcomes "Stick to your guns", "Confused in Public" and "Conform in Public" the position effects are estimated by considering if any of the adolescents in the positions before adolescent i answered correctly in public (i.e. they answered C).
# **7.3 Impacts on Household Chores and Care**

The _Choices_ curriculum includes modules that look to raise awareness of time use differences between boys and girls and of broader societal expectations regarding gender roles. It also attempts to instill the importance of actively showing caring actions to others. Table 6 therefore explores any _Choices_ treatment impact on self-reported behaviors for boys and girls separately.<sup>68</sup> The outcome in Table 6 columns 1 and 2 is whether the adolescent did any household chores activities in the past week whereas in columns 3 and 4 is the number of hours spent on domestic and care activities in the past week.<sup>69</sup> Results suggest no evidence of an impact on the likelihood that girls do less household chores. However, we find _Choices_ boys increase the likelihood they do any household chores in the past week. In the short-run, at midline, this result is significant for the boys who also had parents assigned to _EMB_ - that is, the marginal impact of the _EMB_ treatment is positive and significant at 95% confidence. This result might suggest that adolescents do not have much say in the chores allocation within their home and parents might be a constraint. In the longer run, at endline, the result is less robust where _Choices_ boys are 7 percentage points more likely to have completed any domestic tasks, relative to boys in the control group. It is reassuring that these effects go in the direction we would hypothesize for boys. However, since _Choices_ girls do not do less at the extensive or intensive margin this is a puzzling result if _Choices_ is expected to lead to a redistribution of the tasks between boys and girls in the home.

In Table 6 columns 5 and 6 we also present a standardized index of caring behaviors towards a sibling of the opposite sex. Results suggest that _Choices_ boys and girls report more caring behavior toward siblings of the opposite sex.<sup>70</sup> Among boys, the _Choices_ treatment leads to a 0.21 standard deviation increase in caring behaviors towards sisters index at midline, and a 0.12 s.d. increase at endline, relative to the control group. That is, boys were more likely to have advocated with their parents for their sisters’ wellbeing and/or demonstrated in some way that they care for their sister in the past month. Among girls the _Choices_ treatment leads to a 0.20 standard deviation increase in caring behaviors towards brothers at midline, and a 0.11 s.d. increase at endline, relative to control group girls (the magnitude of the results for girls are the same as boys but the results are less precise).

> 68Here we may expect effects to go in opposite directions for boys and girls, so we do not not show the combined impact. That is, for boys to do more household chores and girls to do fewer household chores as a result of the program.

> 69The activities included here are cooking, washing clothes, cleaning the house and washing dishes which are domestic tasks; and can also be considered traditional female tasks since at least 2 out of 3 of the girls in the sample performed these activities at baseline. An index measure of the number of chores was also analyzed where we find no treatment differences.

> 70Note 99% of the sample have siblings and 90% have siblings of the opposite sex at baseline.

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Table 6: Impact on Behaviors - Chores and Care

||Comple<br>domestic<br>past wee|ted any<br>tasks in<br>k (Yes=1)|Hours s<br>domestic<br>average<br>week|pent on<br>tasks in<br>day last<br>(0-24)|Index: Ca<br>sibling of<br>gende|ring for<br>opposite<br>r (0-1)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Boys<br>(1)|Girls<br>(2)|Boys<br>(3)|Girls<br>(4)|Boys<br>(5)|Girls<br>(6)|
|Panel A: Endline|||||||
|_CHOICES_|0.070*|0.012|-0.027|-0.150|0.117**|0.114|
||(0.04)|(0.02)|(0.13)|(0.20)|(0.06)|(0.08)|
||[0.07]|[0.83]|[1.00]|[0.88]|[0.04]|[0.17]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|-0.013|0.015|-0.102|-0.019|0.007|-0.044|
||(0.04)|(0.01)|(0.17)|(0.14)|(0.05)|(0.06)|
||[1.00]|[0.22]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.97]|
|Control group mean|0.50|0.94|3.61|5.08|0.01|-0.01|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.04|0.02|0.02|0.01|0.11|0.09|
|Observations|<br>1,285|1,358|1,285|1,358|1,287|1,271|
|ANCOVA|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|No|No|
|Panel B: Midline|||||||
|_CHOICES_|0.008|-0.015|-0.149|0.046|0.214***|0.202*|
||(0.03)|(0.01)|(0.15)|(0.16)|(0.07)|(0.12)|
||[1.00]|[0.31]|[0.47]|[1.00]|[0.00]|[0.11]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|0.087**|-0.007|0.305*|-0.075|-0.037|-0.078|
||(0.04)|(0.02)|(0.16)|(0.14)|(0.09)|(0.09)|
||[0.05]|[1.00]|[0.08]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.71]|
|Control group mean|0.53|0.96|3.24|5.03|0.00|-0.02|
|<br>Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.03|0.07|0.03|0.07|0.10|0.14|
|<br>Observations|<br>939|1,048|939|1,048|967|1,026|
|ANCOVA<br>Notes: * significant at 10% le|Yes<br>vel ** significan|Yes<br>t at 5% level *|Yes<br>** significant|Yes<br>at 1% level|No|No|

(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups. EMB=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES+EMB group, effectively giving the marginal impact of the EMB program in addition to the CHOICES program.

(2) ANCOVA estimation controls for the level of the outcome variable. All regressions include district fixed effects and a set of controls measured at baseline: dummy for whether household has multiple adolescents and age of respondent.

(3) Standard errors are clustered at the community level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. Sharpened q-values that correct p-values for the false discovery rate (FDR) are in square brackets. A sharpened q-value of 1.00 indicates the null hypothesis is not rejected at any level of FDR.

(4) Outcomes: "Completed any domestic tasks in the past week" =1 if adolescent completed any of the following household chores activities in the past 7 days: cooking, washing clothes, cleaning the house, or washing dishes. "Hours spent on domestic tasks in average day last week (0-24)" = number of hours spent on care for others and domestic tasks on an average day in the past week. "Index: Caring for sibling of opposite gender (0-1)" is based on whether the child mentions one thing they did in the past week to let their sibling know they care for them, and whether they have spoken to their parents about their sibling's wellbeing during the last month (Index standardized using method by Kling et al. 2007).

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# **7.4 Impacts on Adolescent Mental Health and Hope**

The _Choices_ training curriculum tried to teach children the importance of having hope and encouraging hope in others, and make children understand how self-esteem affects the pursuit of hopes and dreams.

Table 7 presents treatment impacts on measures of mental health and hope. Table 7 columns 1 to 3 uses the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) which is a behavioral screening questionnaire validated for adolescents that consists of 25 statements: 10 attributes as strengths, 14 as difficulties, and 1 neutral that was developed by Goodman (1997). The statements are used to construct a total number of difficulties index measure that can be decomposed into 4 sub-scales: emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, and peer relationship problems.<sup>71</sup> Additionally in Table 7 columns 4 to 6 the outcome is a sub-scale from the SDQ that captures pro-social behavior which are behaviors that are intended to help others. The _Choices_ treatment leads to a decrease in the emotional and behavioral problems faced by boys who report that they experience a 1.061 standard deviation decrease in the total difficulties index at midline, and a 1.338 standard deviation decrease at endline, relative to boys in the control group. The direction of the treatment effects are similar for girls; however, these effects are marginally insignificant (Column 3, sharpened q-value 0.12). A decomposition of the total index shows that _Choices_ treatment effect for boys is significant across all sub-scales at endline: boys face fewer emotional symptoms, conduct problems, problems with inattention, and problems with peers; while girls face fewer emotional symptoms.

In Table 7 the outcome in columns 7 to 9 is the Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) which is a six-item scale developed by Snyder et al. (1997) that measures a child’s perception that their goals can be met. The CHS total score is presented in Table 7 and the scale can be decomposed into Agency Thinking and Pathway Thinking sub-scales.<sup>72</sup> We find evidence of a positive treatment impact on the adolescent’s perception that their goals can be met in the short-run. However, impacts are not sustained in the longer-run.

In addition to the SDQ and CHS, at endline we also measured the generalized self-efficacy (GSE) index scale as developed by Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995) (not shown in Table 7).<sup>73</sup> The average GSE index score (ranging from 1-4) at endline is 2.83 and we find no significant difference in the average GSE scores of adolescent boys and girls in the sample. We find no evidence of a treatment impact on the self-efficacy outcome.

It is noteworthy that the improvements in mental health outcomes as a result of the _Choices_ program are experienced by both boys and girls. This is consistent with increasing evidence that gender inequality is undesirable for everyone (Baird et al., 2019).

> 71The sub-scales are not shown in Table 7 but are available on request.

> 72Agency Thinking captures the child’s perception on their ability to take action towards a goal, and Pathway Thinking is the child’s perceived capacity to find a way towards that goal. Note the sub-scales are not shown in Table 7.

> 73Self-efficacy has been found to be negatively correlated with anxiety, stress and depression (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995).

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Table 7: Impact on Adolescent Mental Health and Hope

||Strengt<br>(SDQ) Sca<br>index|hs and Diffi<br>le: Total di<br>(Standardi|culties<br>fficulties<br>zed)|SD<br>Pro<br>(S<br>|Q Sub-Sca<br>social beha<br>tandardize|le:<br>vior<br>d)|Childr<br>Total Sc|en's Hope<br>ore (Stand|Scale:<br>ardized)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All<br>(1)|Boys<br>(2)|Girls<br>(3)|(4)<br>All|Boys<br>(5)|Girls<br>(6)|All<br>(7)|Boys<br>(8)|Girls<br>(9)|
|Panel A: Endline||||||||||
|_CHOICES_|-1.338***|-1.827***|-0.797|-0.195|-0.314|-0.116|0.080|-0.050|0.182|
||(0.45)|(0.59)|(0.49)|(0.16)|(0.23)|(0.20)|(0.30)|(0.30)|(0.43)|
||[0.01]|[0.01]|[0.12]|[0.32]|[0.23]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|0.466|0.700|0.181|0.279*|0.645**|-0.050|-0.064|0.006|-0.145|
||(0.45)|(0.66)|(0.49)|(0.15)|(0.27)|(0.19)|(0.24)|(0.36)|(0.26)|
||[0.41]|[0.41]|[1.00]|[0.09]|[0.02]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|
|Control group mean|-0.11|0.41|-0.63|0.09|-0.05|0.23|0.03|0.09|-0.03|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.10|0.11|0.10|0.14|0.15|0.14|0.06|0.08|0.04|
|<br>Observations|2,643|1,285|1,358|2,643|1,285|1,358|2,643|1,285|1,358|
|Panel B: Midline||||||||||
|_CHOICES_|-1.061**|-1.019**|-1.109|-0.050|0.029|-0.130|0.497**|0.518**|0.452|
||(0.43)|(0.50)|(0.76)|(0.22)|(0.27)|(0.28)|(0.20)|(0.22)|(0.35)|
||[0.02]|[0.05]|[0.20]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.02]|[0.02]|[0.27]|
|_EMB (marginal)_|0.718*|0.899*|0.556|-0.243|-0.195|-0.263|-0.065|-0.077|-0.018|
||(0.38)|(0.50)|(0.54)|(0.17)|(0.26)|(0.22)|(0.24)|(0.29)|(0.36)|
||[0.07]|[0.08]|[0.41]|[0.16]|[0.77]|[0.30]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|
|Control group mean|-0.07|0.32|-0.42|0.07|-0.06|0.18|0.06|0.17|-0.04|
|<br>Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.18|0.19|0.17|0.32|0.31|0.33|0.02|0.01|0.02|
|<br>Observations|1,987|939|1,048|1,987|939|1,048|1,987|939|1,048|
|ANCOVA<br>Notes: * significant at 10|Yes<br>% level ** signi|Yes<br>ficant at 5%|Yes<br>level *** sign|Yes<br>ificant at 1%|Yes<br>level|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|

(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups. EMB=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES+EMB group, effectively giving the marginal impact of the EMB program in addition to the CHOICES program.

(2) ANCOVA estimation controls for the level of the outcome variable. All regressions include district fixed effects and a set of controls measured at baseline: dummy for whether household has multiple adolescents and age of respondent.

(3) Standard errors are clustered at the community level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. Sharpened q-values that correct p-values for the false discovery rate (FDR) are in square brackets. A sharpened q-value of 1.00 indicates the null hypothesis is not rejected at any level of FDR.

(4) Outcomes in Table 4 columns 1 and 2 are created from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) which is a behavioral screening questionnaire consisting of 25 statements developed by Goodman (1997) that aggregates 4 sub-scales: emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer problems into an index of “Total Difficulties Scale” (0-20). The sub-scale that measures prosocial behavior is also shown. The Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) is a six-item scale developed by Snyder et al. (1997) that measures a child's perception that their goals can be met. All index measures have been standardized as per the method from Kling et al. 2007.

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# **7.5 Impacts on Education and Marriage Outcomes**

In Table 8 we examine outcomes related to education: whether the child is currently enrolled in school in columns 1 to 3 and hours spent in school or studying in the past week, conditional on enrollment (columns 4 to 6). While the _Choices_ program was not explicitly designed to keep adolescents in school we examine education outcomes since this is one of the major activities that the adolescent could be involved in. The program targeted adolescents both in and out of school and at baseline 80% of the adolescents were enrolled in school (83% of boys and 78% of girls). Table 8 shows that the _Choices_ treatment had limited impacts on school enrollment rates. The control group mean at midline for school enrollment was 83% and at endline 86%. Similarly, hours spent in school or studying remains unchanged by the program.

Adolescents also report on their aspirations for the future across a number of domains, including aspirations for professional work, education, marriage, and fertility. At baseline most of the aspirations were fairly high e.g. 76% of boys and 75% of girls aspire to study up to university at baseline. By the endline survey, 90% of the control group aspired to study up to university. However, even with such high aspirations in Table 8 we show there is a small impact of the _Choices_ program on girls’ aspirations to attend university.

Note, marital status and fertility outcomes were also examined at endline. However, at the time of the endline survey, a large part of the sample were still too young for these outcomes to be relevant. At endline we find less than 1% of the sample who are married and 0.5% of the sample have children with no estimated treatment difference.

# **7.6 Impacts on Leadership**

During the lab-in-the-field experimental games adolescents were asked to discuss and decide who within their team should be assigned to the position of leader and deputy of the team. In Table 9 we present the _Choices_ impacts on the likelihood an adolescent was chosen for a leadership position in their team where the outcome is a dummy variable for whether the adolescent was selected as a leader.<sup>74</sup> Columns 1 and 2 present the results for all teams combined.<sup>75</sup> While in column 1 the coefficient on _Choices_ treatment is positive, only in column 2 that examines heterogeneity by gender the result for _Choices_ boys is statistically significant. That is, column 2 shows that the _Choices_ treatment increases the likelihood that boys lead, and has no impact on the likelihood that girls lead. In columns 3 to 6 we split the sample into the mixed-gender teams (3-4) and single-gender teams (5-6). We find the _Choices_ impact for boys is only statistically significant for treated boys in the all boys team. Presumably, _Choices_ boys are better able to negotiate with other boys in their team that they should be made the leader. In the mixed-gender teams we find no evidence of a treatment impact; however, overall girls are less likely to lead their team than boys (see coefficient on _Girl_ is negative).

> 74Results for the position of deputy were also analyzed but are not shown in Table 9 as we find limited impacts for the deputy position.

> 75The regression analysis is first run for the unrestricted, full sample, then we restrict the analysis to mixed-gender teams only, and single-gender teams: the boys-only and girls-only teams.

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Table 8: Impact on Schooling Outcomes

||Enr|olled in Sch<br>(Yes = 1)|ool|Hours per<br>studyin<br>(conditi|day spent in<br>g last week<br>onal on enr|school or<br>(0-24)<br>olment)|Aspirat<br>univ|ion to stud<br>ersity (Yes|y up to<br>= 1)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All<br>(1)|Boys<br>(2)|Girls<br>(3)|All<br>(4)|Boys<br>(5)|Girls<br>(6)|All<br>(7)|Boys<br>(8)|Girls<br>(9)|
|Panel A: Endline||||||||||
|CHOICES|-0.004|0.017|-0.024|0.108|0.133|0.054|0.025*|0.021|0.029*|
||(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.14)|(0.18)|(0.24)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
||[1.00]|[0.89]|[0.69]|[0.83]|[0.83]|[1.00]|[0.09]|[0.34]|[0.08]|
|EMB (marginal)|0.008|-0.025|0.042*|0.150|0.157|0.180|-0.004|-0.005|-0.003|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.02)|(0.15)|(0.24)|(0.21)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
||[1.00]|[0.67]|[0.08]|[0.49]|[1.00]|[0.64]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|
|Control group mean|0.86|0.88|0.84|6.63|6.92|6.35|0.90|0.91|0.90|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.07|0.03|0.11|0.03|0.03|0.02|0.01|0.02|0.00|
|Observations|<br>2,643|1,285|1,358|2,643|1,285|1,358|2,506|1,229|1,277|
|Panel B: Midline||||||||||
|CHOICES|0.005|-0.016|0.024|-0.069|-0.096|-0.041|-0.014|-0.041|0.010|
||(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.16)|(0.24)|(0.21)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.71]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.15]|[1.00]|
|EMB (marginal)|0.003|0.011|0.003|0.022|-0.056|0.165|0.034|0.041|0.029|
||(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.11)|(0.22)|(0.16)|(0.02)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
||[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[1.00]|[0.48]|[0.14]|[0.21]|[0.42]|
|Control group mean|0.83|0.87|0.79|6.33|6.81|5.89|0.87|0.89|0.85|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0.21|0.14|0.27|0.14|0.10|0.17|0.07|0.07|0.06|
|<br>Observations|<br>1,987|939|1,048|1,987|939|1,048|1,886|908|978|
|ANCOVA|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Notes: * significant at 10% lev|el ** significa|nt at 5% level|*** significan|t at 1% level||||||

(1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups. EMB=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES+EMB group, effectively giving the marginal impact of the EMB program in addition to the CHOICES program.

(2) ANCOVA estimation controls for the level of the outcome variable. All regressions include district fixed effects and a set of controls measured at baseline: dummy for whether household has multiple adolescents and age of respondent.

(3) Standard errors are clustered at the community level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. Sharpened q-values that correct p- values for the false discovery rate (FDR) are in square brackets. A sharpened q-value of 1.00 indicates the null hypothesis is not rejected at any level of FDR.

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Table 9: Impact on Leadership

||||Child is Lea|der (Yes=1)|B l|Gil l|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||All t|eams|Mixed-gen|der teams|oys ony<br>team|rs ony<br>team|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|
|CHOICES|0.040|0.079**|0.054|0.061|0.103*|-0.042|
||(0.03)|(0.04)|(0.04)|(0.06)|(0.06)|(0.06)|
|Girl||-0.064||-0.103*|||
|||(0.05)||(0.06)|||
|CHOICES # Girl||-0.076||-0.017|||
|||(0.05)||(0.07)|||
|Number of CHOICES peers in team (0-4)|-0.010|-0.010|-0.013|-0.014|-0.026*|0.011|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Control group mean|0.17|0.17|0.17|0.17|0.13|0.23|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|-0.01|0.00|-0.01|0.01|-0.01|-0.03|
|Observations|1,000|1,000|495|495|250|255|

Notes: * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% level (1) CHOICES=1 if adolescent was assigned to CHOICES only or CHOICES+EMB treatment groups.

(2) Standard errors are clustered at the community session level and are reported under the coefficient in parentheses. All OLS regressions includes district fixed effects and controls for whether household has multiple adolescents, the age of respondent, and peer effects given by the number of CHOICES adolescents in the adolescent's team excluding the respondent themself (0-4). Regressions in Table 6 columns (1) and (2) also include a control for team composition (whether team is mixed-gender, all boys, all girls).

(3) Outcomes: Dummy variable for whether the adolescent was chosen to be leader by their team (4) Table 6 Columns (2) and (4) present gender differences by including dummy variables for gender of the adolescent "girl" and an interaction term between treatment and gender (CHOICES # girl).

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# **8 Conclusion**

We evaluate a gender norms program that tries to encourage the development of positive, mutually-respectful gender attitudes and behaviors to promote greater gender equality in Somalia. The program is targeted to young adolescents aged 10-14, an age preceding many important schooling and work decisions. We find evidence that the program led to a shift towards more gender egalitarian attitudes for both girls and boys. The adolescents were also more likely to stand by these gender egalitarian views in public when they were surrounded by a group of peers. We also find changes in perceived gender norms for boys, but not for girls which suggests normative pressures from peers may be different for boys and girls. We find no evidence of a program effect on the desire to conform, proxied in our experimental set-up through a line match game, that supports the notion that what we observe are social dynamics specific to gender attitudes/norms taught by the program; not conformity in general or outright rebellion. Our findings have potential implications for understanding different types of social influence more generally, and we hope future work further explores social dynamics with alternative reference groups.

Program impacts occurred in a relatively short timeframe and were maintained two years post-intervention. Attitudes towards equal gender rights to education and a woman’s role in the economic sphere were more malleable in the Somali context whereas attitudes around masculinity were difficult to shift. We show that the norms intervention can be effective when delivered through an after-school program for both in- and out-of-school adolescents at an early age. Government policy that embeds gender norms programming in school curricula or through school management committees can be a pathway to scale.

Programs that tackle restrictive gender norms may be better targeted at both adolescent girls and boys in tandem. By allowing space for critical reflection on gender equality, especially during an age where these views are being reinforced and internalized by both sexes, can help to address constraints on future economic outcomes and wellbeing. Adolescence is a period of great developmental change that leads to social and emotional maturity. In this phase, the program led to a decrease in the emotional and behavioral problems faced by both boys and girls. While we find a complementary gender norms program to parents also resulted in more egalitarian attitudes among mothers and fathers, we find limited additional impact on adolescent attitudes or behaviors. Reassuringly, adolescents do not report experiencing any immediate backlash from their parents or the community.

Though we are unable to link these changes in attitudes and behavior to longer run education or labor market outcomes, the fact that we find increased expression of gender egalitarian ideals in public, even when faced with opposing discriminatory views, is important. It suggests that the program can help to build the foundation on which adolescents will be able to negotiate important future life decisions more effectively. For when they come up against societal expectations, they will need the wherewithal to stand up for what they personally believe in and resist societal pressures to conform.

39