Female Micro-Entrepreneurship and Child Development

We owe deep gratitude to the participants who dedicated their time to this study; to countless local stakeholders and practitioners who shared their wisdom and advice; and of course to the staff of the implementing partner without whose tireless work this project would not have been possible. This project greatly benefited from discussions with Costas Meghir. Generous funding from the Weiss Fund (BN-002), the National Science Foundation (#2315009), the Dovetail Impact Foundation, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL GEA-25-03001 & LAI-25-03010 from UK Government International Development funding), the Livelihood Impact Fund, the Gates Foundation (BMG-23-10013-X3 via Innovations for Poverty Action), as well as the Bravo Center, Population Studies and Training Center,Watson Institute, and Nelson Center at Brown University is gratefully acknowledged. Poll also benefited from fellowships funded by the Watson Institute, Brown University Graduate School, the Population Studies and Training Center (under NICHD P2C HD041020 and T32 HD007338), and the Barrett Hazeltine Fellowship for Graduate Research in Entrepreneurship. This study was pre-registered at https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/11789 and approved by Brown University IRB (#98) and Malawi’s NCRSH (NCST/RTT/2/6). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.