South Asia Gender Innovation Lab

This study seeks to understand the most effective ways to measure intimate partner violence (IPV). It tests the comprehension of interview questions through self-interviewing tools and compares the disclosure of IPV with different interview delivery formats.

This study explores whether a “big push” intervention to improve the conditions of the ultra-poor, particularly women, in Afghanistan can strengthen household resilience in fragile contexts.

This paper analyzes the extent to which machine learning methods can accurately differentiate ultra-poor households eligible for program benefits from ineligible households (based on criteria such as a household being financially dependent on women’s domestic work or begging, with no adult male income earners, among others).

This paper examines the impact of return migration from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf on the transfer of gender norms to the Indian state of Kerala, with a focus on attitudes about gender-based violence and sexual assault.

Using survey data collected in 2018 in low-income neighborhoods of Dhaka, this study documents the labor market outcomes and time use patterns of women in urban Bangladesh

Through a randomized test, this study examines the effects of performance feedback by (fictitious) female versus male managers on 1,800 Indian gig workers’ attitudes and efforts in the workplace.

Using online job portal data and probabilistic regression estimations, this paper investigates the explicit gender bias and salary gap in the Indian job market, reflected in more than 800,000 job recruitment advertisements.

This paper analyzes the incidence and extent to which domestic violence and physical harassment on public/private buses is underreported in Kerala, India, using the list randomization technique.

Using data from the census and the National Sample Survey Organization, this paper analyzes trends in female labor force participation in India over two decades, estimating its recent decline and assessing explanatory factors for it.

This report examines the pervasive gender gaps in Pakistan, highlighting barriers to women's economic empowerment, identifying key policy priorities, and offering an evidence-based toolkit for policymakers to design targeted interventions.

This report explores the persistence of women’s poor labor market outcomes in Sri Lanka and recommends priority areas for addressing the supply- and demand-side factors to improve women’s labor market outcomes. It also offers recommendations for improving women’s participation in the private sector.

This book examines women's economic outcomes and empowerment in Bangladesh. It also offers recommendations and good practices for promoting women’s participation in the labor force, closing the gender wage gap, and addressing key social and market barriers.

This review presents a typology of economic women's group models implemented in South Asia. It identifies implementation models, key characteristics, and the implications of investing in women's groups to improve economic outcomes.

This regional review identifies women’s economic empowerment programs with direct measures of child marriage in South Asia. The review discusses SAR results in relation to global evidence and focuses on intervention implementation.

This regional review identifies women’s economic empowerment programs that measure intimate partner violence and have been evaluated in the South Asia region, synthesizing this evidence in relation to global evidence.

This document is part of SAR GIL’s systematic review series, a comprehensive meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies published since 1990, with the goal to document what has and has not worked for women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. This review focuses specifically on skills and training-based interventions.

This document is part of SAR GIL’s systematic review series, a comprehensive meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies published since 1990, with the goal to document what has and has not worked for women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. This brief focuses specifically on women’s self-help groups as a mechanism for achieving changes in economic outcomes.

This document is part of SAR GIL’s systematic review series, a comprehensive meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies published since 1990, with the goal to document what has and has not worked for women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. This brief focuses specifically on asset transfer interventions and changes in inheritance and property right policies and laws.

This document is part of SAR GIL’s systematic review series, a comprehensive meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies published since 1990, with the goal to document what has and has not worked for women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. This brief focuses specifically on financial products.

This document is part of SAR GIL’s systematic review series, a comprehensive meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies published since 1990, with the goal to document what has and has not worked for women’s economic empowerment in South Asia. This brief focuses specifically on care policies and services.

This study documents labor market outcomes and time-use patterns of women in urban Bangladesh. Using survey data collected in low-income neighborhoods of Dhaka, authors analyze outcomes considering factors such as the number of children and childcare support for women.

This publication explores whether exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the labor market aspirations and expectations of female vocational students in Haryana, India.

This study provides causal evidence on the impact of life skills programming on the mental health of adolescent girls aged 10-19 in three distinct low- and middle-income countries: Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia.

In this study, the authors hire 2,228 Indian gig-economy workers for a real-effort transcription task and randomize the gender of the (fictitious) manager as well as the delivery of performance feedback by managers, with the goal of analyzing the effect of these factors on workers’ attitudes and effort provision.

By combining survey data from an anti-poverty program in Afghanistan with mobile phone logs from beneficiaries, the authors study the extent to which machine learning methods can accurately differentiate ultra-poor households eligible for program benefits from ineligible households. 

This study explores the gendered impacts of COVID-19-related school closures on continued learning and motivation among secondary-school students in Bangladesh and presents the short-term impacts of an intervention that offered them a Growth Mindset curriculum.

This blog, presented as a Feature Story in the World Bank's news section, provides a detailed insight into the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of children and adolescents in Punjab, Pakistan.

This blog showcases how the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Labs used innovative approaches to collect data and present evidence of COVID-19's impact on women entrepreneurs, women employees, and women in vulnerable forms of work, such as informal and domestic work.

In this blog, the World Bank’s South Asia Regional Vice President Martin Raiser explores how removing legal, social, and digital barriers can unlock women’s economic potential and boost regional growth.

This blog summarizes a study where authors partnered with the Hyderabad City Police to study their Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE) Teams program. This initiative uses hotspot policing to address sexual harassment in public spaces.

This blog explores how social norms in Bangladesh and the COVID-19 pandemic affect girls’ secondary school completion using sex-disaggregated data curated on the Gender Data Portal and results from a survey of 2,220 adolescent girls and boys conducted by the GAGE program.

This blog, presented as a Feature Story in the World Bank's news section, provides a detailed insight into the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of children and adolescents in Punjab, Pakistan.