It’s an online world with offline problems. Although data collection may be done remotely, it is still vital to ensure that you consider and account for the gender equity of your data. Read more about this issue in our #EvalTuesdayTips on Feminist Evaluation. In another recent blog post, we shared insights from the front line of remote data collection through the experiences of Khulisa senior evaluator, Margaret Roper. In this #EvalTuesdayTip, we provide you with two great ways to counter gender inequity in data collection when conducting a remote evaluation.
- When conducting a census or survey, ensure female enumerators call female participants.
This is a great way to ensure that your remote data collection method remains sensitive to the local gender roles. Your data collection protocol should “reflect local contexts and norms concerning the conditions under which women (or men) feel empowered to speak freely” (Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation [DPME], 2020). By having female enumerators call female respondents, you reduce the threat-level that could be perceived from the female participant or from her family who may be listening in on the call.
2. Ensure at least 50% female respondents when collecting data.
Khulisa remotely collected population level data through random digit dialling in Kenya and Ethiopia in 2020. Since more men than women have cell phones, we put in place a protocol requiring 50% of the participants be female. When we hit the target of 750 men, we continued the survey until we had 750 women.
Further reading:
Littman, J., 2021. ‘Overcoming Underrepresentation of Women in Remote Data Collection.’ Obtained from: https://aea365.org/blog/overcoming-underrepresentation-of-women-in-remote-data-collection-by-jess-littman/
South African Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, 2020. ‘Gender Responsive Evaluation Framework.’ Obtained from: https://evaluations.dpme.gov.za/images/gallery/Final%20Gender%20Responsive%20Evaluation%20Guideline.pdf
