Principal investigator: Eduarda Miller de Figueiredo
Article title: WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT IN ACTION: EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIAL IN AFRICA
Article authors: Oriana Bandiera, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci. Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman
Location of the intervention: Uganda
Sample size: 5.966 teenage girls
Sector: Genre
Type of intervention: Effects of vocational and life training for girls
Variables of interest: Vocational and life skills
Evaluation method: Experimental Evaluation (RCT)
Policy Problem
Women's empowerment has three dimensions: political, economic, and full control over their bodies. In some countries, women have achieved independence, but in others, economic and reproductive empowerment shows slow progress. In these countries, the female workforce is extremely low, and most women marry and procreate much younger than their contemporaries in developed nations (World Bank, 2006; Jayachandran, 2015). This is because women have not had access to contraceptive methods for reproductive control and the facilitation of investment in human capital, and also because violence against women is more acceptable and prevalent in developing countries (Doepke, Tertilt, and Voena, 2012; Jayachandran, 2015).
The question that arises from this situation is whether the accumulation of female human capital can put them on a path to equality, or whether these previously discussed circumstances are maintained by cultural norms that would be difficult to alter/relax through public policies (Campo, Jayachandran and Pande, 2010).
Assessment Context
The importance of targeting adolescents lies in the fact that the lack of opportunities in the skilled labor market at the end of adolescence can reduce incentives for girls to invest in their human capital, leading to early marriage and pregnancy, and increasing dependence on men (Jensen, 2012).
Policymakers in developing countries prioritize helping young women to empower themselves, given the growing number of young people and, consequently, youth unemployment. This is a reality in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Uganda, which has one of the lowest median ages, with women having a fertility rate three to four times higher, mainly in the 15-19 age group.
Therefore, the program aims to provide:
- i Vocational skills to enable girls to start small-scale income-generating activities;
- ii Life skills to build knowledge, enabling girls to make informed choices about sex, reproduction, and marriage.
The program has proven to be transferable between countries, with modifications for local contexts: it began in 1993 in Bangladesh, then went to South Asia and East Africa, and is now in post-conflict countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Uganda, the program has had positive impacts, which will be discussed below, and has proven to be cost-effective.
Policy Details
The intervention of the Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents program, ELA.[1], it occurs in so-called “Teen Development Clubs”[2] Instead of schools, this allows them to reach female students who have dropped out of school. Furthermore, this space provides opportunities for girls to meet and socialize with other teenage girls, free from the pressures exerted by men.
The clubs are open five afternoons a week, after school hours, and their activities are led by a mentor, who was selected from within the community and is slightly older than the teenage girls participating in the program. The choice of mentors who are slightly older than the girls is because the literature shows that interventions of this style in school have limited impact because young people do not feel comfortable discussing such topics with teachers (Ross, Dick, and Ferguson, 2006).
Eligibility for the ELA program is based on sex and age, meaning girls between 14 and 20 years old. However, some girls outside this age range participate in the program and receive vocational training. During the first two years, vocational and life skills are provided. After that, the teenagers are free to use the club as a safe social space, but without receiving treatment.
Vocational skills courses include hairdressing, tailoring, computing, agriculture, poultry farming, and small business operation, enabling income generation through small-scale self-employment. All courses are complemented by financial literacy courses covering budgeting, finance, and accounting skills. Life skills include educational sessions on sexual life and reproductive health, menstruation, pregnancy, family planning, and rape. A final class provides girls with legal knowledge on women's issues such as child marriage and violence against women.
Methodology Details
The 1.200 clubs created for the ELA were randomly distributed across communities in Uganda, from which the authors selected 10 to conduct an impact assessment. The randomization unit will be the community corresponding to small neighborhoods; thus, the research has 100 treatment communities and 50 control communities.
In this way, a representative sample of 5.966 adolescents was tracked at the beginning (March-June 2008), in the middle (March-June 2010), and at the end (May-July 2012), making it possible to analyze the long-term dynamic impacts of the program. Each survey was conducted in person to capture (i) the vocational skills component, (ii) the life skills component, and (iii) other margins, which include investments in education, use of time, spending, and other measures of economic and social empowerment.
The authors performed estimates for the Intention-to-Treat Effect (ITT).[1], using an OLS to estimate the outcome for the adolescent i in the community j, for the mid-stage (2010) and end-stage (2012) analyses of the intervention.
Results
The estimate of self-reported entrepreneurial skills in relation to the initial survey shows an 8% increase in the middle survey and a 3% increase in the final survey. Thus, the results demonstrate that the girls in the treatment group perceive themselves as having better entrepreneurial skills, capable of managing a small business, than the girls in the control community.
The results also suggested that girls in the treatment group increased their likelihood of engaging in any income-generating activity by 67% in the 2010 survey, and by 48% in the 2012 survey. Therefore, there are improvements in the female workforce, primarily through involvement in self-employment. Regarding income, the treated girls experienced a 39% increase in the average survey. Thus, the ELA program has significant impacts on strengthening the economic empowerment of adolescent girls.
Regarding early pregnancy, the ALS program demonstrated that treated girls have a 2,7 percentage point lower probability of having a child compared to girls in the control group. This represents a 24% drop in fertility rates. For delayed marriage, the program also had a significant impact, as treated girls were 53% less likely to be married.
In terms of sexual behavior, the girls in the treatment group showed a 30% reduction in the likelihood of having sex unwillingly, as well as a 13 percentage point increase in the use of condoms during sexual intercourse.
Therefore, all the observed results demonstrate a positive and significant impact of the ELA program across the three dimensions of women's empowerment: political, economic, and control over their bodies.
Lessons in Public Policy
The lack of opportunities in the future job market can reduce girls' incentive to invest in their human capital, leading to early marriage and, consequently, early pregnancy. This increases their dependence on older men. Thus, programs that provide vocational and life skills have shown that adolescent girls engage in economic activities and postpone procreation and marriage, impacting their life trajectory.
Reference
BANDIERA, Oriana et al. Women's empowerment in action: evidence from a randomized control trial in Africa. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 210-59, 2020.
[1] Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents
[2] "Adolescent Development Clubs"
[3]Intent-to-treat (ITT).
