Research Projects
Ongoing:
Disentangling and Preventing Economic Violence against Women (ECOVI)
Violence against women is a violation of fundamental human rights and substantially compromises women’s health, wellbeing, and empowerment. Globally, more than one in four women experience physical and/or sexual violence by a partner in their lives. This risk is considerably higher among women in low- and middle-income countries and in cultures with pronounced patriarchal gender norms. However, existing research has so far neglected an important dimension of intimate partner violence (IPV): economic abuse. This form of abuse includes denying women the right to participate in financial decisions, taking away their income or preventing them from seeking employment. The consequences are profound – economic IPV compromises women’s economic welfare and independence, traps them in abusive relationships, and adversely affects their mental health. To tackle this major global health concern, ECOVI has three objectives: first, to establish the prevalence of different forms of economic IPV; second, to develop a theory of economic abuse by investigating drivers of economic IPV and linkages with other forms of IPV; and third, to design and test a community-based prevention approach. To this end, I will focus on India, which is home to 670 million women and girls and exhibits high levels of gender discrimination that exacerbate women’s vulnerability to economic IPV. I will capitalise on a mixed-methods approach, including (i) systematic reviews and meta-analyses, (ii) conducting qualitative in-depth interviews and focus groups, and (iii) implementing a cluster randomised controlled trial and innovative survey experiments with husbands and wives in 150 Indian communities. ECOVI will generate the largest existing database on economic IPV and establish an evidence-informed prevention approach. This has the potential to yield ground-breaking scientific and programmatic evidence on how to alleviate the economic violence and associated economic hardship that women worldwide are facing.
Funding provided by an ERC Starting Grant.
Publications in BMJ Global Health.
Understanding, Detecting, and Mitigating Online Misogyny against Politically Active Women
Billions of people use social media every day. Many of them discuss political topics online. Radicalization, extreme speech, and in particular online misogyny against politically active women have become alarming negative features of online discussions. In this interdisciplinary project, we will employ mixed-methods approaches to three case studies in Germany, India, and Brazil to better understand the content and dynamics of online misogyny against politically active women and to develop methods for early identification of such emerging dynamics. We will collaborate with subject matter experts in India and Brazil as well as with media partners and affected female politicians. With citizen social science tools we will involve the general public in the process of identifying emerging campaigns of online misogyny against politically active women. This project will also develop policy briefs and regulatory approaches to address online misogyny.
In collaboration with Jürgen Pfeffer and Sahana Udupa.
Funding provided by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt).
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child Marriage, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Domestic Violence in India and Zambia
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastating socioeconomic consequences and is projected to severely slow down progress towards reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. The SDG5 for “Gender Equality” is no exception. In light of this, the proposed project aims at assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender inequality in the Global South. We thereby put specific focus on three central indicators of gender inequality, namely (1) gender-based violence (SDG target 5.2), (2) child and forced marriage (SDG target 5.3), and (3) sexual and reproductive health (SDG target 5.6).
The proposed research will provide crucial insights into the immediate harms that the pandemic puts onto young women and girls. Knowledge on which groups are most vulnerable is vital information for policy-making and can help channelling emergency relief and support mechanisms towards these families and girls.
Funding provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Publications in Journal of Adolescent Health & Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters & BMC Public Health
Doing No Harm? Ethical Challenges and Safeguards for Researchers “In Field”
Conducting field research in developing countries is characterised by a wide range of ethical complexities. To date, ethics principles and guidelines are largely focused on ensuring the safety and wellbeing of study participants. While we strongly acknowledge the importance of this, we argue that the key principle of “doing no harm” should equally apply to study researchers. Accordingly, research staff such as local enumerators, field supervisors, and project managers, may face a range of ethical challenges. Examples include (but are not limited to) experiences of secondary or vicarious trauma, job burnout, safety risks, racial and cultural frictions in multi-nationally composed research teams, unstable and unsustainable working conditions for local reseach staff, as well as inadequate acknowledgement of local research contributors (known as “parachute research”).
In this project, we first intend to systematically review and document the numerous challenges that researchers (at all hierarchical levels) are exposed to when conducting field research in potentially conflict-ridden, instable or deprived settings. In a second step, this project aims at developing safeguarding measures and guidelines for adequately protecting all involved researchers.
In collaboration with Jana Kuhnt, Lennart Kaplan, Ana Garcia Hernandez, David Atika Nyarige
Publications in Lancet Global Health, BMJ Gobal Health, World Development.
Behavioural Determinants of Financial Decision Making in Indian Households
In this project, we conducted a series of small behavioural games with low-income households in slum communities in Pune, India. The behavioural games were aimed at eliciting participants' traits and characteristics, including honesty, time preferences and regret as well as trust between spouses. Our experimentalal measures of these characteristics will be used to explain possible variations in financial behaviour and decision making.
In collaboration with Henrike Sternberg and Sebastian Vollmer
Completed:
Pan-European Response to the Impacts of COVID-19 and future Pandemics and Epidemics (PERISCOPE)
PERISCOPE investigates the broad socio-economic and behavioral impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to make Europe more resilient and prepared for future large-scale risks. 32 partner institutions from 15 European countries are part of the PERISCOPE project. This sub-project led by TUM examines how citizens respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and what implications it has for their everyday lives. Specifically, it analyses citizens' willingness to comply to physical distancing regulations, get vaccinated or use warning apps on smartphones. Focus is put on bejavioural determinants of these behaviours, including trust in governments, health institutions and media, altruistic preferences, risk perceptions, and time preferences.
Funding provided by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission.
In collaboration with Tim Büthe and Henrike Sternberg.
Publications in Science Advances & eLife & Health Economics.
The impact of COVID-19 on violence against women and children in Germany
To contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly a quarter of the world’s population is currently under lockdown or practicing physical distancing. These measures may have inadvertent consequences. In this project, we study the implications of the shutdown and social distancing policies across German states (“Bundesländer”) for violence against women and children. We will conduct a representative online survey with 3000 households across Germany to quantify the prevalence of violence against women and children and examine whether being quarantined at home along with poor mental health, economic insecurity, changes in partners’ relative earnings and employment status, and increased childcare responsibilities exacerbate the risk of domestic violence. We will use variation in state laws on social distancing and home quarantine behaviour to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence against women and children. We will triangulate our survey data with administrative data from telephone helplines and counselling services for survivors of domestic abuse as well as from police records. Findings from this study can help inform policy programmes to alleviate these risks and more effectively protect women and children in times of crisis.
Funding provided by the Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation & Google Cloud.
In collaboration with Cara Ebert.
Read the publication here.
Impact Evaluation of a Combined Financial Literacy Training and Parenting Program in South Africa
This projects sets out to examine how the effectiveness of financial literacy programs can be increased when targeting a particularly poverty-affected population in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. For this, we draw on emerging evidence from a range of projects that integrate poverty alleviation strategies with psychosocial program components by embedding a brief financial literacy training into a wider evidence-based parenting intervention.
To evaluate the impact of the program, we ran a field experiment with 552 families from 40 village clusters. 20 villages were randomly selected to receive the Sinovuyo Teen program and the remaining 20 to serve as our control group. At 5-9 months post-intervention, we find that participants from the treatment group have significantly changed their financial behaviours: They save more and borrow less, particularly so from moneylenders. We also observe significant decreases in financial distress, improved resilience to income shocks, and better access to a range of basic necessities, including education, medical care, and clothing.
In collaboration with Lucie Cluver and the World Health Organisation and UNICEF.
Publications in Journal of Development Economics & Journal of Development Studies
A policy brief can be found here.
