Research Support Assistant – Women’s Employment and Online Jobs – J-PAL South Asia

J-PAL South Asia, a regional office of J-PAL, is based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in India and leads J-PAL’s work in the South Asia region. J-PAL South Asia conducts randomized evaluations, builds partnerships for evidence-informed policymaking, and helps partners scale up effective programs.

We have a growing number of partnerships in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In 2011, we were selected to host the South Asia Center for CLEAR, a global initiative coordinated by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group. Under this initiative, we host a knowledge sharing roundtable series and equip practitioners with the expertise to carry out rigorous evaluations through training courses, advisory services, and joint research projects.

J-PAL South Asia at the Institute for Financial Management and Research seeks a qualified applicant for the position of Research Support Assistant to work on the implementation of an impact evaluation in India. The position offers an opportunity to gain first-hand field management experience in an organization undertaking cutting-edge development research. The Research Support Assistant will join a team of world-class researchers from leading universities in the world and will gain first-hand experience implementing Randomized Control Trials in an organization undertaking cutting-edge development research. The position will be based out of Kolkata, West Bengal, with occasional trips to the field.

The Research Support Assistant will also work in close relationship with the PIs who guide and supervise them in their various tasks.

Education: Bachelor’s Master’s

Start Date (Earliest): 1 March 2022

Language Requirement: Bengali, Hindi

Length of Commitment: None

About the Project

Labor force participation (LFP) is lower for women than for men nearly everywhere. This is particularly true in India, where the LFP rate was 20.3% for women and 76% for men in 2020 (ILO). Even in the cross-country U-shape of FLFP and income per capita, India is a major outlier (Fletcher et al., 2019).

FLFP has stagnated and even declined in recent years, and Covid-19 has likely exacerbated this trend (Deshpande 2020). In this project, we test whether a flexible array of internet-mediated job opportunities could be an effective way to help women transition to external employment by offering an intermediate step in household adjustment away from women participating exclusively in unpaid, at-home production. The characteristics of internet-mediated gig work — the ability to work from home, at flexible hours, with relatively little training — suggest it may be well-suited to facilitate labor force participation for women who would otherwise be excluded.

This project addresses two sets of questions: (1) How valuable are job attributes such as flexibility in location and hours in increasing female employment?, and (2) What are the impacts of this part-time, at-home employment, and to what degree can these opportunities function as a stepping stone to full-time employment? To address these questions, we will conduct a randomized experiment with approximately 1,500 households in Kolkata, India, offering variations on internet-mediated gig jobs to women which are identical to each other except along one attribute and measure the impact of that attribute (e.g. the ability to work from home) on take up of work.

Second, we will implement these jobs over one month and estimate their effects on gender attitudes related to work and household roles, household members’ time use, and interest in future work. After the job intervention, we will connect women to nearby skills training and employment, measuring take up as an outcome to understand whether short-term, part-time, at-home work can act as a gateway to the broader labor market.

The Principal Investigators on this project are Lisa Ho (PhD candidate in Economics at MIT) and Anahita Karandikar (J-PAL South Asia). The faculty advisors for this project include Esther Duflo, Ben Olken, Frank Schilbach, and Abhijit Banerjee.

Key Responsibilities

Research Support Assistants will work closely with academic researchers and other field staff to perform a variety tasks including, but not limited to:

• Designing, translating and digitizing survey instruments
• Managing a full-scale randomized control trial. Oversee the implementation of the evaluation in accordance to the research design in association with our partner organization
• Managing field teams during the main RCT phase: Recruit, train, and supervise a team of enumerators and supervisors
• Supervising data collection and data entry to ensure good data quality during the RCT phase
• Maintaining relationships with the partner organizations
• If the candidate is interested in developing data skills, we can help provide training to assist with data cleaning and preliminary data analysis
• Assisting in preparation of documents and presentations for donor reporting as well as dissemination activities
• Report to PIs on all of the above mentioned activities

Desired Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, or related fields
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in English and Bengali are required, skills in Hindi are preferred
• Previous experience in development research is preferred but not required (any experience with SMEs in India is beneficial).
• Excellent management and organizational skills along with strong quantitative skills
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and team player
• Knowledge of Stata or other data analysis software is preferred
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials preferred
• Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments

Note on Work Authorizations:

Candidates must have work authorization to work in India.

How to Apply:

Complete the application J-PAL/IPA Common Application. After completing a brief registration; choose the Research job category, then select “Research Support Assistant – Women’s Employment and Online Jobs – J-PAL South Asia

”. Applications require you to include two letters of recommendation, statement of purpose (cover letter), CV, and transcripts. Note that you are able to submit your application without the recommendation letters. However, please be advised that we will be requiring them should you be invited for an interview.

Please also send an email to Rakesh Pandey rakesh.pandey@ifmr.ac.in, Anahita Karandikar akarandikar@povertyactionlab.org, Lisa Ho lisayz@mit.edu and Divya Manoj Goel at  dgoel@povertyactionlab.org copying jpalsajobs@povertyactionlab.org with your CV following these instructions exactly:

• In the subject line, put your full name, first (given) name followed by last (family) name.
• Attachments: Please attach ONLY your CV and cover letter.

In the email body, copy exactly the following position line:

•  JPAL South Asia, Research Support Assistant-Women’s Employment and Online Jobs in India
• Please do not include any text besides the position line(s) in the body of the e-mail. Adding extra text will interfere with the processing of your application.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.