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About us FEB Research / FEB FEB Research Institute (FEBRI) Research programme EEF Psychological constraints

Vietnam project

Empowering women by external economic and internal psychological-based barriers: Theory and empirical evidence from a microfinance intervention in Vietnam


This project studies how a combination of economic and psychological interventions can improve women’s empowerment. The impact of a newly developed intervention will be evaluated by organising a randomised controlled trial with a microfinance institution in Vietnam. In particular, this project studies how the impact depends on the cultural framing of the intervention.

Project progress

A theoretical paper highlighting the potential of combining of material and psychological development interventions was developed. It can be found under Research output.

In June of 2022, members of the University of Groningen met the project partners in Vietnam to kick-off the project and qualitative data was collected aimed at better understanding the local context and designing a culturally-relevant intervention. Further information regarding the visit and the qualitative work is provided under Blogs.

In October of 2022, a meeting was held in Hanoi with TYM partners and representatives from the Vietnamese Women’s Union, to discuss ideas for the intervention. Following that, ideas were further developed and from March 2023 to July 2023, the intervention was designed in Vietnam in close collaboration with TYM. A Training of Trainers (ToT) took place in July 2023 and the intervention was rolled out from August to November 2023. The training material has been made publicly available and can be found under Research output.

Our experiment has been pre-registered at the AEA RCT Registry. Baseline survey data was collected during June-July 2023. A lab-in-the-field experiment was embedded in the training and was completed in November 2023. Midline survey data was collected during March-April 2024, and an endline survey is scheduled for the summer of 2024. Data will be analyzed once it comes in, and results will be made available through this website. We are planning to organize workshop(s) in Vietnam to disseminate research output and findings in 2025.

Researchers

Robert Lensink
Robert Lensink

Robert Lensink
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Mark Treurniet
Mark Treurniet

Mark Treurniet
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Nina Hansen
Nina Hansen

Nina Hansen
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Nhung Vu
Nhung Vu

Nhung Vu
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Claire Stein
Claire Stein

Claire Stein
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Last modified:26 April 2024 2.20 p.m.