Reducing Irregular Migration Experiment and Replication Files

The Gambia is divided into five administrative regions and the capital city area of Banjul. We selected the two Eastern-most regions of the Upper River Region (URR) with a population of 240,000; and the Central River Region (CRR) with a population of 226,000. These regions were chosen due to their high propensities of irregular migration and poor access to conventional sources of information about migration.

Using estimated population sizes projected from the 2013 Gambian census, we identified settlements that were predicted to have at least 35 males aged between 18 and 30, and that had total population sizes below 3,000. We then used data from the 2015/16 integrated household survey to exclude two districts with the lowest shares of households receiving remittances, to ensure we focused on areas with higher likelihoods of migration. We then randomly selected 404 settlements from a pool of 580 eligible settlements to conduct a listing exercise.

Settlements are divided into enumeration areas (EAs), consisting of at most 500 individuals (50 households), and most settlements consist of only one EA. We randomly chose up to 2 EAs per settlement and conducted a door-to-door listing exercise of all households in these 404 settlements to record whether they have at least one male aged 18 to 30.
Listing took place from March 26, 2019 to April 11, 2019 (see study timeline in Appendix A5) and listed 5,597 households with males aged 18 to 30 in the 404 villages. The baseline survey then took place between April 19, 2019 and May 18, 2019. Data collection was conducted in 391 settlements, after dropping 13 small settlements that had fewer than 4 eligible households. Within the eligible households, the baseline interview took place with a male 18 to 30