Iodine Deficiency and Gender Attitudes in Tanzania

说明(申请人提供)：尽管近年来取得了进展，但在世界许多地区，女童和妇女相对于男童仍然处于不利地位，具有多重负面潜在影响。性别不平等的核心是关于性别的社会规范和态度，这些规范和态度导致歧视性制度并使之永久化，并最终阻碍制度和行为的变化。尽管如此，人们对性别规范和态度是如何演变和适应的了解很少。一个重要的问题是，为什么性别不平等在特定社会中严重而持久，而在其他社会中却不是？一个相关的问题是，当女性获得更多提升机会，从而影响对女性相对能力的看法时，性别态度演变的可能性有多大？该项目将通过收集新的和独特的数据，促进我们对这两个问题的理解，这些数据将被用来调查性别态度如何应对坦桑尼亚因减少胎儿缺碘而导致的女孩教育的改善和认知能力性别差距的缩小。特别是， 坦桑尼亚孕妇补碘计划先前评估的数据显示，在该计划期间出生的女孩在12-15岁时获得了近一年的额外就学成绩，而男孩受益甚微，这与科学证据一致，即碘缺乏对处于大脑发育早期阶段的女性来说更为严重。这项研究将跟踪坦桑尼亚16个地区受益于该计划的1200个家庭，并使用内隐联想测试(IATS)收集在该计划期间出生的儿童的父母的性别态度数据，以及他们孩子的经济结果数据。这项研究的目的是：(1)开发适合文化的IAT来衡量性别态度和刻板印象，并开发和测试调查问题来衡量关于男性和女性相对能力和性别刻板印象的明确信念；(2)通过利用先前研究中建立的计划暴露的准实验差异，结合我们从父母那里收集的关于性别态度和偏好的数据，评估女孩减少胎儿碘缺乏对母亲和父亲的性别态度的因果影响；以及(3)通过收集地点信息和收集关于儿童长期结局的代理数据，评估对受益于宫内补充的儿童进行调查的可行性。这项拟议的研究将首次使用最近开发的严格方法来评估女孩对胎儿缺碘的易感性与父母的性别态度之间的因果关系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite progress in recent years, girls and women remain disadvantaged relative to boys in many parts of the world, with multiple negative potential implications. At the heart of gender inequality are social norms and attitudes about gender that give rise to and perpetuate discriminatory institutions, and ultimately inhibit institutional and behavioral change. Despite this, little is understood about the how gender norms and attitudes evolve and adapt. One important question is why is gender inequality acute and persistent in particular societies but not others? A related question is how readily do gender attitudes evolve when women are given more opportunities to advance and thereby influence perceptions about women's relative ability? This project will contribute to our understanding of both questions by collecting new and unique data that will be used to investigate how gender attitudes respond to improvements in girls' schooling and a narrowing of the gender gap in cognitive ability that arose from reductions in fetal iodine deficiency in Tanzania. In particular, data from a previous evaluation of the Tanzania maternal iodine supplementation program showed that girls born during the program had achieved nearly a year of additional schooling attainment by ages 12-15, whereas boys benefited very little, consistent with scientific evidence that iodine deficiency is more acute for females at early stages of brain development. The study will track 1200 households from 16 districts of Tanzania that benefited from the program and collect data on gender attitudes of mothers and fathers of children born during the program using Implicit Association Tests (IATs), and data on economic outcomes of their children. The study aims to: (1) Develop culturally appropriate IATs to measure gender attitudes and stereotyping, and develop and test survey questions to measure explicit beliefs about male and female relative ability and gender stereotyping; (2) Assess the causal effect of reductions in feta iodine deficiency among girls on maternal and paternal gender attitudes by making use of quasi-experimental variation in program exposure that has been established in previous research in conjunction with the data we collect from parents on gender attitudes and preferences; and (3) Assess the feasibility of conducting a survey of children who benefited from in utero supplementation by collecting location information and gathering proxy data on kids' long-run outcomes. The proposed study will be the first to use rigorous, recently developed approaches to assess the causal association between girls' susceptibility to fetal iodine deficiency and parental gender attitudes.