P.O.W.E.R. Model for shifting gender and social norms about unpaid care and domestic work in Uganda: A Randomised Controlled Trial

P.O.W.E.R. Model for shifting gender and social norms about unpaid care and domestic work in Uganda: A Randomised Controlled Trial

The study tests a social-ecological intervention (P.O.W.E.R. model) implemented in a randomised control trial setting to shift perceptions about gender and social norms surrounding care and domestic work in Ugandan families. The key outcome indicator of measurement is the redistribution of time on leisure, care work, paid work, education, community, and others, especially for women, and the reduction in time spent on care and domestic work. We used a difference-in-difference method on a Poisson model specification on a panel of 1,179 households in 16 parishes in Mpigi, Masindi, Mbarara and Pallisa districts. The Promoting, Organising, Working, Engaging and Reaching Out (P.O.W.E.R.) model intervention is where “P” involves working with women in Village Savings and Loan Associations, “O” has action groups engaging Role Model Men and Boys, “W” uses SASA! Activists to engage communities through forums and dialogues; “E” involves using duty bearers within communities, and “R” engage national-level platforms and duty bearers.

Findings reveal that after 18 months of implementation, monitoring and support in randomised treatment parishes, the P.O.W.E.R. intervention shifted perceptions among men and women on general household well-being and recognition of men in contributing more to education within the household. Increasingly, the impacts of the interventions led to an increase among women who were very satisfied with the division of tasks in P.O.W.E.R and W.E.R. intervention parishes by 0.115 (P<0.01) and 0.169 (P<0.01), respectively. Men in P.O.W.E.R. intervention parishes strongly agreed that women should receive help from other household members to perform various activities on care and domestic work by an increase of 0.119 (P<0.1).

Women in the P.O.W.E.R. intervention increased agreement on the need for the government to provide health care and childcare services by 0.195 (P<0.05) and 0.137 (P<0.05), respectively, fully recognising the need to redistribute the work to the government. Concerning time use (recall period of activities done in the last 24 hours of a day), the P.O.W.E.R. model significantly reduced time spent among women on care and domestic work by 1.568 hours and 0.598 hours among men, with equally significant impacts on women and men’s time spent on education, community and other activities.

Time spent on paid activities for both men and women across treatment parishes compared to the control, despite the increase, was not significant. We recommend that government, civil society organisations, and community-level leaders invest and scale up a whole intervention approach (P.O.W.E.R.) to shift mindsets and behaviour on negative, often sticky, undefined gender and social norms if a reduction in time spent on care and domestic activities is to be attained while at the same time fostering long term participation of women and men in paid activities.

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• Published Feb 19, 2025