Women bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid and care work, a factor that could explain why depression is twice as common among women as men. Although evidence abounds on how the double burden affects labor market opportunities and empowerment, few interventions address mental health outcomes or directly engage men in unpaid work. 

We evaluate a phone-based Behavior Change Communication (BCC) intervention that engaged men through personalized discussions on gender norms over 14 weeks, among ultra-poor households in Ethiopia.

The intervention significantly reduced depressive symptoms for both spouses, coinciding with a shift in household labor: treated men’s contributions to chores increased by 40 percent, with sons also contributing more. Consequently, women’s overall chore burden declined, allowing them to focus on tasks they prefer. These findings highlight that redistributing household responsibilities can enhance both partners’ well-being and result in inter-generational benefits.

The co-authored manuscript from this project is currently under R&R at the Journal of Development Economics.

Recent labor market changes, technological advances, and post-COVID-19 shifts in priorities have increased interest in flexible work. Despite rising female labor force participation, women still carry a disproportionate share of childcare and unpaid domestic work, leading to work-family conflict and poorer mental health. Using nationally representative Dutch data, this paper estimates the impact of maternal labor supply on mental health, focusing on variation by youngest child’s age and work intensity.

To address endogeneity, we use a control function approach with a bunching design (Caetano et al., 2023), exploiting the bunching of maternal work hours at zero hours to isolate the effect of unobserved confounders on mental health. The study finds that higher work hours can worsen maternal mental health. Part-time employment is associated with better maternal mental well-being regardless of mother having a young child. These findings could inform policies promoting flexible work arrangements, which could help mothers balance their work and family responsibilities more effectively

The Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) initiative works across Bangladesh, India, and Nepal to build sustainable, inclusive food systems in a region facing severe poverty, malnutrition, and climate stress. It aims to improve access to healthy diets, strengthen farmer resilience, and conserve natural resources across the food chain.

Using TAFSSA survey data, we explore links between women’s empowerment, task division, decision-making, and diet quality. We find that women’s decision-making power is linked to higher empowerment, especially in agriculture and food preparation tasks. However, equal task-sharing between men and women does not consistently lead to greater empowerment. Diet outcomes are shaped more by structural factors like wealth and education than by empowerment alone, suggesting the need for broader, systemic change.

The co-authored manuscript from this project is currently a work in progress.

We conduct a quasi-experimental evaluation of nutrition-focused interventions across five Indian states—West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh. Using three rounds of panel data, we assess changes in women’s BMI and child dietary diversity from standard nutrition programs and from integrating nutrition with agriculture, livelihoods, gender, and rights.

There are several co-authored journal manuscripts from this project published in Food Policy, Journal of Development Studies and Current Developments in Nutrition. There is one work in progress paper. Details can be found here.

India accounts for a large proportion of the global prevalence of maternal and child undernutrition, and recent trends have renewed the call for large-scale concerted efforts to improve outcomes. Leveraging self-help groups (SHGs), we conducted a cluster-randomized trial in Bihar to evaluate the impact of a multi-sectoral convergence pilot on maternal and child nutrition. The pilot was jointly implemented by the World Bank and JEEViKA, under the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS), and consisted of two components, one that promoted behavior change, and the other that promoted the use of health and nutrition-related services by increasing convergence and coordination efforts. 

Over 2.5 years, the program improved dietary diversity but had no effect on women’s BMI or child undernutrition. Knowledge and adoption of key behaviors along the impact pathway improved as a result of the treatment. 

The co-authored journal manuscript from this project published in World Development and impact report can be found here.

Promoting self-employment through women’s groups is seen as a promising strategy to boost livelihoods and female labor force participation in South Asia, but evidence on large-scale government programs remains limited. In 2011, the Government of India, with World Bank support, piloted an “intensive” approach under the National Rural Livelihoods Project (NRLP). This study evaluates its welfare impacts using data across three states in India: Jharkhand Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Findings show the program increased women’s work participation, improved access to credit, boosted savings, and lowered borrowing costs.This is the first study to estimate the annual income effects of a government-run rural livelihoods program in India, and it shows significant increases in median income across the sample.

The co-authored journal manuscript from this project published in the World Bank Group Impact Evaluation series  and impact report can be found here.