Rural Sociology of Village Burial Society Premium Waiver Petitions and Widow Remarriage Timing in Ugandan Sub-Counties: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Waiver Thresholds

Village burial societies in rural Uganda routinely waive premium arrears for widows whose households fall below an informally applied poverty threshold, yet the sociological consequences of this administrative discretion for widows' remarriage timing remain unexamined. Because no observational data are available, the study characterises the operating characteristics of the proposed design under a declared variance structure: between-cluster standard deviation of 6.0, residual standard deviation of 4.5, and an intraclass correlation of 0.64. Power was estimated across 2000 replications per design cell for cluster counts of 8, 16, 24 and 32 and effect sizes of 3, 5 and 8 percentage points. The analysis indicates that 52 clusters are required to detect a 5 percentage point effect at 80 per cent power. Kernel density estimates of power across design cells, minimum detectable effect curves, and coefficient plots with 95 per cent confidence intervals are reported to guide future fieldwork.