Community social norms and girl's agency in adolescence: Baseline findings from the Care Tipping Point Program in Nepal

Summary:

Empowerment is the process of claiming new resources that enhance agency, or the ability to make strategic life choices that advance personal or shared goals, in structural and normative contexts where this ability was denied. Agency is multidimensional including intrinsic (power within), instrumental (power to), and collective (power with) elements. Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) calls for national efforts to advance women's and girls' empowerment; however, efforts to measure empowerment focus largely on women. Adolescence is a period of rapid developmental change in which experiences like child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM)can launch girls prematurely into adulthood, with profound implications for their long-term empowerment. To address this gap in monitoring SDG5, CARE, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and Emory University developed a comprehensive toolkit to measure girls' multidimensional agency for use in the CARE Tipping Point Program Impact Evaluations in Bangladesh and Nepal [1]. We provide a conceptual overview of empowerment and agency in adolescence. We discuss measures we developed to assess intrinsic, instrumental, and collective agency in unmarried adolescents 1216 years in two districts in Nepal, where CEFM remains high and the CARE Tipping Point Program is supporting change [1]. We compare unadjusted baseline estimates of agency for girls (N=1,334) and boys (N=1,154) and assess whether community social norms account for gender gaps in agency. Qualitative data aid interpretation of the quantitative findings. Findings offer insights for community-based programs about measuring agency in adolescence and how community-norms programming may advance girls' agency toward gender equity and ending CEFM.

Background/Objectives:

The CARE Tipping Point Program leverages social-norms and empowerment theories to support adolescent girls to become agents-for-change in community-based movements to end CEFM. The team developed a toolkit to measure community social norms and girls' empowerment in impact evaluations of the CARE Tipping Point Program in Bangladesh and Nepal. Scales measure girls' intrinsic agency, instrumental agency, and collective agency alongside community social norms about gender, honor, and CEFM [1]. A subset of agency scales was administered to adolescent boys, allowing novel assessments of program impact on achieving gender equity in adolescent empowerment as a pathway to end CEFM in girls.

Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:

We use baseline quantitative and qualitative data from 54 wards in Kapilvastu and Rupandehi districts of Nepal to compare the multidimensional agency of unmarried adolescent girls (N=1,134) and boys (N=1,154) 12-16 years who are participating in the CARE Tipping Point Program impact evaluation. We compare the sociodemographic characteristics of the two adolescent samples. We then use validated scales to assess gaps between girls and boys in measures of intrinsic agency (gender attitudes 0-27, sexual/reproductive health knowledge 0-7, and self-efficacy 0-22), instrumental agency (leadership competence 0-18 and adolescent-parent communication 0-18), and collective agency (group membership 0-2, collective efficacy 0-15). We then use multivariate regression models to assess whether unadjusted gender gaps in adolescent agency can be accounted for by variation in community social norms, adjusted for sociodemographic background and district. Rich baseline qualitative data aid interpretation of the multivariate findings.

Results/Lessons Learned:

During the oral presentation, we will present the Nepal Tipping Point Program Impact Evaluation theory of change, study design, and findings from the baseline qualitative and quantitative data collection. We will share lessons learned about measuring the multidimensional agency of adolescent girls vis--vis boys in a community-based social-norms and empowerment-building program developed by CARE to support the abandonment of CEFM. We also will explore the extent to which community social norms account for gender gaps in multiple dimensions of adolescent agency. Findings will offer critical insights about measuring and monitoring adolescent girls' agency and empowerment, on their own and vis--vis boys. Findings also will offer insights about how community social norms may influence girls' agency and gender equity in adolescent agency. We will discuss the utility of these measurement tools for wider use in adolescent programming in Nepal and globally.

Discussion/Implications for the Field:

Girls' empowerment requires extensive, integrated engagement with adolescents to develop self-efficacy alongside relational- and normative change in communities to enhance girls' agency and their ability to fulfill their rights. Tipping Point uses girl-led movement building as a novel complement to standard, individual-level agency-focused activities to enhance girls' individual, relational, and collective agency while seeking to change social norms in communities to address the underlying causes of child marriage. Evidence for the effectiveness of this program has important implications for combined social-norms and movement-building initiatives as scalable strategies to end CEFM, and to contribute to achievement of SDG5.

Abstract submitted by:

Kathryn Yount - Emory University
Zara Khan - Emory University
Cari Jo Clark - Emory University
Sadhvi Kalra - CARE
Anne Sprinkel - CARE