1. Blattman hits the nail on the head, as usual. Should we give away cash (again)? Earlier discussion here.

2. Professors would probably have better desk-side manner if the academic job market actually rewarded it.

3. This is just sad.

4. And I'll just pretend I don't see things like this.

5. Doing something> doing nothing?

A lot of things in Tanzania are frustratingly inefficient. A lot of things in Tanzania require incredible patience. Turning back on the electricity is not one of these things.

We used up our electricity credit in our work house (likely because I opt to keep the refrigerator on) here in Meatu.  My colleague used the brilliance of M-Pesa to buy another 50,000 Tanzanian shillings of electricity and within twenty-five seconds, the power was back on.

I don’t think a power company in the states could turn the electricity back on within twenty-five hours.

Economics takes such a quantitative approach to research; we excel at measuring effects, not at explaining why those effects exist. So, I understand the value of focus group discussions. Allowing people the opportunity to openly explain why, and have responses that include more than a 0 or 1, is a small pittance to that effort.

It’s also useful to have a few anecdotes. There was the woman whose in-laws intervened after she and her husband had decided to use contraceptives.  Or a family planning worker who swears people listen to her public health message more when her she carries her official work bag. Even if my quantitative analysis is extremely rigorous, people remember these stories.

However, I mostly find focus groups to be an unpredictable, methodologically imprecise and difficult to analyze.

Last Tuesday, we conducted a focus group in one of the nearby study villages that was included in the intervention educating local family planning workers.  My field assistant liked this village; the village officer was very helpful, and this often made a big difference on how smoothly the household data was collected.

I was also impressed as a group of eight men were waiting at the village office for the meeting to start. Family planning discussions with men in Meatu can send off a flurry of debate, as many in these villages are firmly pro-natalist.   However, this focus group discussion went extremely smooth.  Yes, family planning would be useful for families in this village. Yes, I discuss contraceptive use with my wife. No, we don’t find it difficult to discuss.  So, conclusively positive reactions to family planning?

Not exactly. If I were to simply analyze the discourse during this discussion, I would miss the entire story.   With a little subjective judgment, I saw that the village leader officer had put on a nice show. The sample of this focus group discussion was clearly biased in favor of family planning. These men were mostly well educated and had mostly been screened to be appropriate for our discussion. 

However, there was one older gentleman in the corner who added two things to the discussion. His initial response to questions about the cost of children was that they are not expensive. And his conclusive statement about family planning was that  “it’s complicated.”

This guy was clearly not on the family planning train, had more-or-less gotten the message that the conversation should stay positive for the American guest and he was keeping his opinions to himself.

Meanwhile, my other beef with qualitative research analysis is the Worldes trend (see below). Apparently, this has become a hip and acceptable as a form of analysis. I could be the old man in the corner and just say the word “think" over and over, and this deep insight would make its way into some analysis in a presentation. 

Great for a t-shirt, I think, not for a conference.

Hat tip: ALD, LN

I have the following table from my preliminary Meatu district health data. It still blows my mind because it basically contradicts all my previously held thoughts about religion, Tanzania and contraceptives.

First of all, 67% of households interviewed did not identify with any religion, not even traditional beliefs. This contradicts everything my Swahili teacher told us about being a good East African ("one should always at least identify as a major religion, even if one never prays"). I guess not so in Meatu? People do report being largely fatalistic, though. 35% of women report that their fertility decisions (do you want another child?) are "up to God" and this group is made up of only one quarter of those that identify with a religion.

The real kicker, though, is the fact that couples who identified with a religion were more likely to use contraceptives. You can see from the number of households and the number of women reporting contraceptive use that the sample size is small. However, Catholics (88 households) have almost twice the overall rate of contraceptive use! Someone tell Paul Ryan?

My hypothesis on this second observation is that affiliation with a larger religion in these extremely rural villages is actually a signal of being more cosmopolitan. There's also a good chance that official doctrine in the Catechism of the Catholic Church isn't making its way all the way to Mwajidalala and Longalonhiga. I'm not complaining.

As for any explanation for the dearth of reported religious identification, my only hypothesis is that I asked the wrong person. I asked men. This time around, I'm asking women. I'm otherwise extremely surprised that individuals don't identify as more religious.

I'm accepting any and all theories, hypotheses and shots in the dark as to why.

There is a fairly well-established internet literature about the excessive dumping of goods to developing countries mixed with hopeful intentions that falls under the cute acronym SWEDOW. Stuff We Don't Want. Now that I've been back in Tanzania for a couple of days, my bag is lighter after I distributed the stuff I brought from the states to friends who asked for things. Keep in mind that this list of stuff that may be needed is biased by the sample of (well-educated and outdoorsy) folks I mix with here in Tanzania.

Stuff they might want:

1. Smart phones. Especially iPhones. There are 0 authorized Apple stores in Tanzania. A black market certainly exists and second hand smart phones are around, but (probably due to the two-year contract renewals that come with new phones) they are still cheaper in the states. And the connectivity improvement that comes with having a smart phone in a country that mostly lacks landlines, service contracts and cheap computers but does have mobile banking and easy access to phone credit.... is huge.
2. Batteries, of all kinds. Long-lasting and high-quality batteries are also still cheaper in the US. Especially if your dad likes to buy the giant packs of AAAs from Costco.
3. Cords and cables. Also a quality issue. Computer cords and outlets seem to get a lot more element exposure (dust, rain, crummy outlets, playful children) in Tanzania than they do back in the states. I've come bearing two mini USB to USB cords to replace older frayed ones.
4. Tough ziplock bags. Clear plastic bags that actually keep liquid in or keep liquid out. I'm actually still reusing the same ones I brought in 2013.
5. Quality sunglasses. Well, this White-Person-with-Irish-Eyes needs sunglasses. It's not entirely clear if the average Tanzanian requires sun protection, but the dust in the dry season is up the wazoo, so sunglasses that don't break after 4 wears are extremely useful.
6. Good hairbands. The kind that are think enough to hold a big pony tail, don't have that painful metal doodad and don't break after one week. These are priceless.

Things to keep in mind as we navigate the SWEDOW flowchart. Any other suggestions?

I'm heading back to Tanzania in a week for the second round of my household survey. This my fourth trip to Meatu district in four years and (probably) my last. This makes me a little more hasty with my preparation plans.

Am I packed and do I have my researcher visa? No. But, do I know where my chacos and smart phone are? Yes. Do I have my survey all digitally programmed and ready for round two of each household? No. But, do I have GPS coordinates for all households and a few days in Arusha to kill while I wait for my researcher visa? Yes.

How long will the process of launching stage two of the household survey take? About two months.

How well is packing going? Well, it looks like this.

My take on this answer basically comes down to what my mom told me is "making conversation," but it matters more when you have exactly one hour with someone important.

1. Introduce yourself with some interesting things and say a bit about what you study. The big shots meet a lot of people- make yourself unique, confident and engaged.

2. Be excited about what you study or plan to study, even if you're still early in your research or not sure what your topic will be. Say something brief that you're passionate about exploring (migration and domestic work?) or mention a really cool research question (what is the impact of remittances on school choices?). Step 1 and 2 are really important if the big shot meeting is over lunch. She needs time to eat.

3. Ask for advice. That's basically why your advisor sets up these lunch opportunities for you. The person you are lunching with is a big shot and she is taking time to speak to you. Run your research ideas by her and see what she thinks. Ask for paper recommendations (top three favorite fertility papers?), fieldwork suggestions, good conferences and other folks to talk to on your subject.

4. If introductions, research topics and advice don't generate enough conversation, ask questions. These should be specific, but not overly technical, questions (in the talk you gave this morning, why did you decide to use that instrument? Is it fairly well established in the labor literature?) Also ask questions about the direction of research in your field. Don't make the guest have to create conversation about the weather.

5. It's OK to play the name game. You went to undergrad with her former advisee and softball teammate? Sure. Everybody loves this person? Great, start the conversation with an awesome person you both appreciate. I do this all the time. The academic world is small and this is bound to happen anyway.

Valuable lessons on how to be an academic that aren't on the syllabus... or taught anywhere.

Scenario 1: Don't expect good feedback if you don't plan to give any. I've seen this happen plenty of times. It's not a crime to leave early or skip all other presentations, but it certainly doesn't make you a generous scholar.

Scenario 2: The Peacock. This one really grosses me out.

Student B: looks agitated throughout the student’s reading, and can barely sit through the next two papers. His hand shoots up during the Q&A session [or, in economics, well before]. 'Yes, this isn’t a question, but rather a comment, for the first reader–I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. [doesn't bother to check program or wait for the student to tell him her name] But in listening to your essay, I wondered if you had considered... read... knew that X wrote an article on the subject in Very Important Journal……realized that your point has already been made by these 5 other Important People'...We should carry peacock feathers to wave around when this happens, so people can have a visual cue that they’re engaging in the vain behaviors of the peacock, grandstanding away, parading their knowledge for the world to see.

So, I agree that peacock feather grandstanding should be called out and reduced. It happens a lot (especially in economics?) and its gross. I don't go to great lengths to not embarrass people, however. If  someone hasn't read a crucial paper in their field that is extremely relevant to this paper, I would let them know without hesitation. I'm not gonna avoid corrective comments completely, but I'll employ the normal-person manners that my parents taught me. But likewise, I don't expect others to go particularly soft on me.

But concern for sensitivity aside, during a presentation, we should be contributing constructive comments, not insulting one another or promoting our own agenda. And having presented to sociologists, historians and political scientists, I find that economists tend to be harsher than folks in other fields. I think this is partly because we interrupt each other. While I actually prefer interruptions as opposed to holding questions all the way until the end, we really do need to keep our grandstanding in check. Sit on your plumage and have some manners.