Do Participatory Learning and Action Women’s Groups Alone or Combined with Cash or Food Transfers Expand Women’s Agency in Rural Nepal?
基于尼泊尔农村1309名孕妇的随机对照试验数据，发现参与式学习与行动妇女小组单独或结合无条件现金/食物转移对妇女家庭自主权的影响微弱，提醒政策制定者谨慎假设此类干预必然赋权。
Participatory learning and action women's groups (PLA) have proven effective in reducing neonatal mortality in rural, high-mortality settings, but their impacts on women's agency in the household remain unknown. Cash transfer programmes have also long targeted female beneficiaries in the belief that this empowers women. Drawing on data from 1309 pregnant women in a four-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial in Nepal, we found little evidence for an impact of PLA alone or combined with unconditional food or cash transfers on women's agency in the household. Caution is advised before assuming PLA women's groups alone or with resource transfers necessarily empower women.