Informational Barriers to Female Employment in India: Experimental Evidence from Vocational Training Students

Last registered on February 07, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Informational Barriers to Female Employment in India: Experimental Evidence from Vocational Training Students
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010877
Initial registration date
February 03, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
February 07, 2023, 11:33 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
The World Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
PI Affiliation
University of Göttingen

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-06-06
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
India has an exceptionally low female labor force participation rate despite substantial improvements in per capita GDP and female educational attainment, and fertility decline in recent decades. This issue is concerning as female labor force participation can empower women and lead to economic growth. One of the key barriers to women’s labor market engagement in India is the lack of information about the job search process, which is particularly critical during the school-to-work transition period. We conduct a randomized controlled trial with female vocational training graduates in India to examine whether access to a phone-based job information portal can overcome these barriers and improve the labor market engagement of young female jobseekers.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
ANUKRITI, S, Catalina Herrera Almanza and Sophie Ochmann . 2023. "Informational Barriers to Female Employment in India: Experimental Evidence from Vocational Training Students ." AEA RCT Registry. February 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10877-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Young women in the treatment group will be directly informed about and encouraged to join a phone-based job portal that has been developed by our partner organization in India. This app or portal provides information about employers and work opportunities relevant to vocational training graduates in several Indian states. This app is freely available on Google Play store, so women in the control group will also be free to access and use it; however, the control group will not be personally encouraged to do so. Through this app, users can learn about the work environment, salary structures, and career trajectories of employers in various locations and trades. Moreover, for each employer listed on the app, users can assess their “female-friendliness” by viewing what fraction of their employees are female. They also have access to employer reviews by current and former employees, and can directly contact employers. The content on the app is in conversational ‘Hin-glish’ (a mix of Hindi and English), which will make it easier for our sample to navigate the app as compared to other English-based job portals. The app emphasizes the needs of young jobseekers, primarily first-time job aspirants, who are looking for exposure (internships), training (apprenticeships), and entry-level jobs (white- and gray-collar). The app targets small and mid-sized employers (5-100 employees) to match with users looking for work. All reviews on the app are verified by our partner organization. Thus, the app provides a noise-free experience relative to other job portals and placement consultants, some of whom often fleece jobseekers with fake interviews and job offers in this context. In addition to developing job market awareness of its users, the app also enables users to apply for advertised jobs on this portal.
Intervention Start Date
2023-01-16
Intervention End Date
2023-07-17

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
a. Beliefs about the likelihood of being employed in one year, measured at endline
b. Beliefs about shortage of jobs, measured at endline
c. Reservation wage, measured at endline
d. Salary expectations, measured at endline
e. Labor force participation, measured at endline
f. No. of job applications during the intervention period

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We conducted a two-month-long baseline survey with female students in 130 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) located in 29 districts of the states of Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, India, between June and August 2022. We selected female students who, at the time of the baseline survey: i) were enrolled in the ITI, ii) were in the final year of their studies (i.e., whose year of graduation was 2022-2023), and iii) had access to a personal or a shared smartphone. At the end of baseline data collection, our sample included 4,411 women who met our selection criteria. We collected data on women’s demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, education, labor market outcomes, job search behavior, career aspirations, preferences, personality traits, empowerment status, gender attitudes, and perceptions of social norms. Roughly 22% of the surveys were conducted over the phone, and the rest of the respondents were interviewed in person.

Using baseline survey data, we formed 1,838 clusters of female vocational trainees based on their potential social connections in the sample (i.e., a woman’s friends and friends of friends). Next, we randomly divided these clusters into a “control” group and a “treatment” group. We randomized at the cluster level to account for plausible intervention spillovers between sample women who are socially connected to each other. Women assigned to the treatment group will be contacted via phone to a) inform them about the job portal and b) facilitate and encourage them to download, install, and use the app on their phones. We stratified randomization based on the following baseline cluster-level characteristics: group size of the cluster, the district where the ITI is located, women’s beliefs about the shortage of jobs, and their expected salary.
We expect to run the intervention for six months. During this period, our partner organization will monitor the intervention by recording information related to women’s registration to the job portal, the creation of job profiles, and the number of job applications, among other app-usage indicators. We will implement a follow-up survey at the end of the intervention period.


Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
We stratified randomization based on the following baseline cluster-level characteristics: group size of the cluster, the district where the ITI is located, women’s beliefs about the shortage of jobs, and their expected salary. Randomization was done in the office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization is a cluster for respondents that are socially connected to each other at baseline.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1,838 clusters of women socially connected at baseline.

Sample size: planned number of observations
4,411 women.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We randomized 916 clusters (2,069 individuals) into the treatment group and 922 (2,342 individuals) into the control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IFMR-Institute for Financial Management and Research
IRB Approval Date
2022-04-28
IRB Approval Number
IRB00007107; FWA00014616; IORG0005894