By Brittni Palkert, second-year graduate student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs

I spent the summer in Panama City, Panama, interning with CID Gallup, a leader in public opinion, social, market, and political surveys. This internship provided our intern team with the opportunity to both design our own research project and participate in ongoing research studies, while learning from experts in the field. My group’s research project centered on women in Latin America that are being “sandwiched” between caring for children and elderly parents which limits them from participating in the workforce, civic life, and elsewhere. It also impacts general well-being, including levels of happiness, stress, and burnout. In the design of this research project, we applied skills we learned from workshops with CID Gallup, conducting a literature review on the topic, identifying the theoretical survey population, and designing the research methodology. The literature review for this project gave me a deeper understanding for the concerns of women in Latin America today and the impact of changing demographics and societal pressures.