Cognitive Labor

The Measures for Advancing Gender Equality (MAGNET) initiative aims to broaden and deepen the measurement of women’s agency, based on the development of new tools and rigorous testing and comparison of both new and existing methods for measuring agency, and promoting the adoption of these measures at scale. By increasing the availability of innovative meaningful measures of agency for a broad range of contexts, we hope our work will lead to an improved understanding of what women’s agency is, how it manifests and how it can best be measured across contexts given the research question at hand. Cognitive labor refers to the mental work associated with anticipating the needs of family members (especially children), identifying options for meeting those needs, deciding among the options, and monitoring the results of those decisions (Daminger 2019). Although distinct from the physical dimensions of unpaid care and domestic labor, like these activities, cognitive labor is viewed in many societies as primarily women’s responsibility. Cognitive labor is, thus, an important component of gender inequality within households. This tool measures cognitive labor in association with different agricultural and non-agricultural activities using easily understandable language (“thinking and planning”). We recommend the use of this tool in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of development programs aimed at improving women’s empowerment and reducing women’s work burdens. This data study includes following files. 1. A survey document (including implementation guidelines). 2. Two files, CAPI_Choices and CAPI_Survey, along with the accompanying files, can be used to construct a CAPI program ready for survey implementation. Alternatively, users can use an Excel workbook \"CAPI_.xlsx\" that includes worksheets for survey and choices, along with others, for constructing a CAPI program ready for survey implementation.

推进性别平等举措（Measures for Advancing Gender Equality，简称MAGNET）项目旨在拓展并深化对女性能动性（women’s agency）的测量维度。该项目依托新型测量工具的研发，对用于测量能动性的新旧方法开展严格测试与对比，并推动这些测量工具的规模化应用。通过为多元场景提供兼具创新性与实践价值的能动性测量工具，我们期望本项目的研究能够增进学界对女性能动性内涵、表现形式，以及结合具体研究问题实现跨场景最优测量路径的理解。

认知劳动（cognitive labor）指与预判家庭成员（尤其是儿童）需求、识别满足需求的可行方案、从备选方案中做出抉择，并监控决策执行结果相关的脑力工作（Daminger，2019）。尽管认知劳动与无偿照护及家务劳动的体力维度存在显著差异，但与这类劳动类似，在诸多社会中认知劳动仍被视作女性的主要职责范畴。因此，认知劳动是家庭内部性别不平等的重要组成部分。

本工具采用通俗易懂的表述（"thinking and planning"），对与各类农业及非农业活动相关的认知劳动进行测量。我们建议将本工具应用于旨在提升女性赋权、减轻女性工作负担的发展项目的设计、监测与评估环节。

本数据集包含以下文件：
1. 调查问卷文档（含实施指南）
2. 文件CAPI_Choices与CAPI_Survey及其配套文件，可用于搭建可直接用于调查实施的计算机辅助个人访谈（Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing，简称CAPI）程序。此外，用户也可使用名为"CAPI_.xlsx"的Excel工作簿，该工作簿包含调查问卷、选项设置等相关工作表，同样可用于搭建可直接投入调查实施的CAPI程序。