Research Support Assistant - Job Search Frictions for Migrant Household - J-PAL South Asia

Project: Job Search Frictions for Migrant Households

Position: Research Associate/Research Support Assistant

Number of Positions: 1

Country: India

State: Tamil Nadu

Start Date (earliest): ASAP

Length of Commitment: 2-3 months (with possible extension)

Education: Bachelor’s/Master’s in Economics or related fields

Organization: J-PAL South Asia at IFMR

Language requirement: English, Hindi, Tamil

PIs: Shreya Tandon (PhD Student – Harvard)

Sector: Labor, Gender

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. We have a growing number of partnerships in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Primary Project Description:

Overview: Shreya Tandon (PhD Student, Harvard) is hiring a Research Assistant/Research Support Assistant for a project studying barriers to employment for rural-urban migrants in India, with a focus on challenges faced by women. The position will offer the opportunity to gain first-hand research management experience (e.g., managing field operations, interacting with partner organizations) as well as the opportunity to work closely with the PI on designing, implementing, and analyzing data from a series of surveys and field experiments. The position will involve travelling with the PI to field locations in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu for data collection.

Position: We are looking for a candidate who is passionate about research and fieldwork, who can work independently, who is enthusiastic, proactive and able to learn quickly. The candidate should have excellent communication skills (both written and oral) and good time management skills. The Research Associate/RSA will work closely with the Principal Investigator who will guide and supervise them in their various tasks.

Research Associate Roles and Responsibilities:

The RA/RSA will work alongside the PI to perform a variety tasks including, but not limited to:

• Piloting survey questionnaires, conducting qualitative research, running pilot exercises
•  Managing teams: Recruit, train, and supervise the field team consisting of project assistants, field managers, field-based surveyors, and other staff.
• Supervising data collection and data-entry, while ensuring data quality, productivity, and compliance with J-PAL protocols.
• Assisting with data cleaning, preliminary data analysis.
• Reporting to the PI on all of the above-mentioned activities.
•  Working with data sets, prepare and run codes regularly for daily data cleaning and analysis in STATA/R.  
• Co-Co-ordinating with the Administrative and Finance team on a variety of tasks related to field staff contracting and payments.
• Co-Co-ordinating with Research Operations team and J-PAL Data team on a variety of tasks related to survey instrument digitization, renting tablets for data collection, etc.

Desired Qualification:

• A Bachelor's/Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, education or related fields
• Excellent management and organizational skills, attention to detail, and strong quantitative skills
• Fluency and excellent communication skills in English and Hindi. Some conversational-level skills in regional languages such as Tamil etc.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently
• Knowledge of Stata and/or R (strongly preferred)
• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials
• Ability to work independently
• Willingness to travel for extended periods of time to field locations in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu to assist the PI with overseeing primary data collection
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations 

Note on Work Authorizations:

Candidates must have work authorization to work in India. This covers citizens of India, Nepal, or Bhutan, Persons of Indian origin (PIO), and Overseas Citizens of India (OCI).