To better understand the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on female labor force participation in Egypt, the study collects data with a particular focus on the intersection of COVID-19, child care, and women’s employment.
The data collection was led by the research team at J-PAL MENA to provide data for researchers and policy makers on the socio-economic and labor market impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on households and women with young children (aged 1-5) in low-income, informal areas (slums) in Greater Cairo.
The target sample is living in the catchment area of the nurseries included in the experiment and who are not yet a client of a nursery. The procedure to identify and recruit these women was the following:
- The catchment area was defined by a 2km radius around each participating nursery.
- In cases where there were multiple nurseries with overlapping catchment areas, the project team combined the catchment areas and summed the household sample targets.
- Facebook population projections were used to identify the GPS locations (pixels) where children aged 0 to 4 in 2020 lived and the number of such children. These children were 1 to 5 in 2021 when collecting baseline data.
- Sample points (pixels, which are locations with GPS coordinates) were collected in each catchment area in a random order, probability proportional to child population.
- Also, the nearest residential building to each selected point was visited, checked whether they met the eligibility conditions and then registered if eligible.
Data collected from households at baseline (right before offering the interventions) include information about the mother (employment, actual earnings (of the mother and total household earnings), job quality, and time use), her husband (particularly his labor supply), and the household’s dynamics (gender role attitudes and time use). The survey questions also capture attitudes and household bargaining power. They are asked to both mothers and their partners.
The data collection happened over three separate periods of time due to delays related to COVID-19 restrictions. The pilot phase was implemented in December of 2020 (30 households), followed by another wave of data collection between March and May of 2021 (624 households) and then another wave between August and September of 2021 (2,761 households).
Within these households 3,415 interviews were conducted with the mothers (in person at their homes) and 1,105 were conducted with their spouses (conducted by phone a couple of days after the interview with the women).
