Research Associate - J-PAL South Asia

Project: Do Policewomen Improve Law Enforcement Performance? Evidence from Haryana, India

Start Date: (earliest): 3rd June

Length of Commitment: 1 year

Education: Bachelor’s/Master’s

Organization: J-PAL South Asia at IFMR

Language requirement: Hindi, English

PIs: Aprajit Mahajan, Manisha Shah, Nirvikar Jassal  

Job Description:

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) J-PAL was established in 2003 as a research center at the Economics Department at MIT. Since then, it has grown into a global network of researchers who use randomized evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL is propelled by a first-rate team dedicated to research, policy, training, and other vital work, supporting J-PAL's mission to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.

J-PAL South Asia, which is based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in India, analyses and disseminates research results and builds partnerships with policymakers to ensure that policy is driven by evidence and that programs proven effective are scaled up.  

Project Description

The project focuses on evaluating whether placing women in supervisory positions in regular police stations improve outcomes for junior female law enforcement officers, their subordinates as well as citizens. It also studies the impact of women’s leadership in local law enforcement on facilitating access to justice for female complainants. It also looks at female labor force participation in law enforcement and empowering women officers and citizens, especially victims of gender-based violence.  

Roles and Responsibilities 

The RA will work closely with academic researchers and other field staff to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to:  

• Designing survey questionnaires, conducting qualitative research, running pilot exercises, refining study design, and surveying instruments.      
• Effectively communicating and reporting field observations for fine-tuning research design components
• Managing teams: Recruit, train, and supervise both field-based and data operations teams consisting of project assistants, field managers, field-based surveyors, data entry operators, and other field and office staff.
• Overseeing implementation of the evaluation following the research design, in association with our partner organization.
• Maintaining relationships with multiple officers at both headquarters and field levels.
• Supervising data collection and data entry, and ensuring data quality and productivity including admin data from the partner.
• Conducting qualitative interviews with police officers to inform the research design.      
• Assisting with data cleaning, preliminary data analysis, and preparation of documents and presentations for dissemination.      
• Reporting to PIs on all of the activities as mentioned above.    
• Maintain compliance with all J-PAL protocols and policies. 

Desired Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s/ Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, mathematics/statistics, public policy, or related field   
• Experience-0-2 years 
• Experience in primary data collection and field management role
• Experience working with police and governance projects before  
• Excellent management/ organizational skills and ability to solve unexpected problems
• Strong quantitative skills
• Working knowledge of Stata (strongly preferred)
• Familiarity with RCTs 
•  Demonstrated experience managing a team
•  Flexible, self-motivating, independent, and manages multiple tasks efficiently
• Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments
• Attention to detail