Conclusion

Access to affordable daycare is may have important impacts on the lives of the women and children of rural India. This pre-analysis plan makes clear what our main hypotheses are regarding the intervention’s impact on women and children, how we will measure primary and secondary outcomes, and how we will analyze the evaluation data.
Primary outcomes and measures for women
Primary outcome category Dimension Measure
Empowerment Household decision making Constructed from 8 questions pertaining to women’s involvement in household decisions (i.e., decisions about: her own healthcare, whether she can work, where she can work, education of her children, visits to family and friends, making major household purchases, making minor household purchases, and how husband’s earnings are spent). Potential answers are: mainly you, mainly your husband, you and your husband jointly, or someone else. We will sum up the number of decisions women were involved in (1 if woman has any involvement, potential score range: 0-8).
Freedom of movement Summary score of binary responses to places within the village women could travel alone (place of worship, friends’ homes, market, health center, community center). Potential responses: alone, not alone, not at all. Scored 1 if women may travel along (potential score range: 0-5).
Community participation Regular attendance at group
Domestic violence attitudes Agrees husband is justified in hitting his wife in any the following situations: 1) She leaves the house without telling him; 2) She neglects the house or the children; 3) She argues with him; 4) She doesn’t cook food properly; or 5) She shows disrespect for her in-laws.
Gender norm attitudes Endorses either: 1) a married woman should be allowed to work outside the home if she wants to; or 2) It is better to send a son to school than a daughter.
Continuous index Scaled score based on confirmatory factor analysis.
Employment Any work Did you do any work in the past month? (yes/no)
Paid work Can we actually identify this?
Hours worked Number of days worked in a typical week for a wage
Occupation (kind of work, or non-farm work) ???
Income and Savings Own income Income reported from all sources (rupees)
Own savings ???
Poverty status Has below poverty line (BPL) card.
NREGA participation Paid through NREGA (yes / no)
Household wealth Principle component analysis (PCA) using 27 indicators including housing characteristics, the number of durables owned, property ownership, and whether the household had a savings account.
Secondary outcomes and measures for women
Secondary outcome category Dimension Measure
Mental distress Count of symptoms Number of symptoms of distress from GHQ-12
Time use Paid work Minutes spent on paid agricultural labor, non-agricultural labor, other paid work (past 24 hours)
Unpaid household work Minutes spent collecting water, cooking, cleaning, laundry, caring for others, and gathering fuel (past 24 hours)
Unpaid non-household work Minutes spent tending animals or working in own field (past 24 hours)
Intimate partner violence Physical abuse Positive response to any of: slapped; twisted arm/pulled hair; pushed, shook, threw something; punched; kicked or dragged; choked; threatened or attacked with weapon in past 12 months.
Emotional abuse Positive response to any of: 1) Husband says something to humiliate you in front of others; 2) Husband threatens to hurt or harm you or someone close to you; 3) Husband insults you or makes you feel bad about yourself in last 12 months.
Controlling behavior Positive response to any one of 5 controlling behaviors (jealous when talking to other men, limiting contact with female friends, limiting contact with family, insistence on knowing location, distrust with money).
Any type of violence Yes to any of the above sub-categories of violence.
Primary outcomes and measures for children
Primary outcome category Dimension Measure
Daycare utilization Balwadi attendance Attended balwadi in past year (yes/no).
Balwadi frequency Days per week attending balwadi.
Balwadi duration Hours per day attending balwadi.
Nutrition Underweight Below minus two standard deviations from median weight-for-age of WHO reference population.
Stunting Below minus two standard deviations from median height-for-age of WHO reference population.
Wasting Below minus two standard deviations from median weight-for-height of WHO reference population.
Incidence of illness symptoms Fever or chills Mother’s report of child symptoms in past month.
Persistent cough Mother’s report of child symptoms in past month.
Diarrhea Mother’s report of child symptoms in past month.
Injury Mother’s report of child symptoms (broken bone, cut with heavy bleeding, skin burn) in past month.
Any illness Mother’s report of any of the above categories in past month.
Vaccination Tuberculosis Child received BCG (tuberculosis) vaccine. Age restrictions?
Polio Child received 3 doses of polio vaccine. Age restrictions?
Diphtheria and tetanus Child received 3 doses of diphtheria and tetanus vaccine. Age restrictions?
Measles Child received measles vaccine. Age restrictions?
Fully vaccinated Child received BCG (tuberculosis) and Polio (3 doses) and diphtheria and tetanus (3 doses) and measles vaccines.
Secondary outcomes and measures for children
Secondary outcome category Dimension Measure
Schooling School attendance Whether child currently attending school this year (yes/no).
School frequency Number of days per week attending school.
School duration Number of hours per day attending school.
Older sibling schooling Whether older sibling attending school (yes/no).
Literacy Reading Maternal report (yes / no) of whether the child can read.
Writing Maternal report (yes / no) of whether the child can write.