Trajectories of personal agency by gender and pubertal development among adolescents in Kinshasa: Longitudinal evidence from the GlobalEarly Adolescent Study

Background: Empowerment research has largely focused on adult women with little focus on younger adolescents. Additionally, despite recognition that empowerment is a process, few studies have longitudinally explored its development. Methods: We used secondary data from four waves of the Global Early Adolescent Study to explore trajectories in the development of three domains of agency (i.e. the internal processes composing empowerment) - Freedom of Movement, Voice, and Decision-Making - for 1188 boys and 1153 girls in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Respondents were age 10-14 at enrollment and followed through age 14-18. We created scales for each domain and conducted gender- and age-stratified latent growth curve modeling with random effects, comparing age 10-14 to age 15-18, accounting for clustering within individuals over waves. We examined the role of puberty within each domain in the analysis of age 10-14. Results: Scores across all domains increased with age for boys and girls, with the exception of Voice amongst boys 10-14. Rates of change varied by age group and gender; for boys, scores increased at a faster rate for older boys relative to younger boys for Freedom of Movement (13(10-14): 3.98 versus 13(15-18): 6.12) and Voice (13(10-14): .50 versus 13(15-18): 2.54). Relative to younger girls, scores amongst older girls increased at a faster rate for Freedom of Movement (13(10-14): 1.76 versus 13(15-18): 3.72) and a slower rate for Decision-Making (13(10-14): 6.41 versus 13(15-18): 2.80). Puberty was associated with significant increases in scores across all domains for both genders, with the exception of Decision-Making for girls. Interpretation: Young people develop/acquire different forms of agency at different stages of adolescence and development is not uniform across forms. Gender inequalities in agency amplify at puberty, signaling the need to intervene at or before this critical stage of development.