Impact of short-term labor force exposure on post-graduation career search and labor force participation for high school students in Delhi

Last registered on December 06, 2023

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0012620

Initial registration date

November 28, 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

December 06, 2023, 8:08 AM EST

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

Locations

Country

India

Region

Delhi

Primary Investigator

Name

Emma Zhang

Affiliation

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Rubina Hudal

PI Affiliation

University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2024-02-01

End date

2027-07-01

Keywords

Behavior, Education, Gender, Labor

Additional Keywords

human capital investment, job search, female labor force participatoin, intra-household decision making

JEL code(s)

J24, D13, J64

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

To suggest effective policies for female empowerment in India, it is critically important to understand a parent’s decision to invest in their daughter’s. We study this by randomly varying payment and information shocks to the parents of high school students, who we randomly incentivize to participate in a 2-week exposure to the labor force.

We will test whether being selected for a short internship along with the act of randomly receiving cash empowers girls to voice their demands for education to their parents, and whether the cash can increase educational outcomes through parent’s beliefs on ability or some other behavioral mechanism. On the parent side, we attempt to disentangle two sources of bias on their daughter’s ability to earn income: (i) bias from beliefs on an individual daughter’s ability to earn income and (ii) bias from the belief that most daughters cannot earn income due to India’s historically low femalelabor force participation. On the student side, we measure changes in job-search behavior and beliefs for a period of one year following expected high school graduation.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Hudal, Rubina and Emma Zhang. 2023. "Impact of short-term labor force exposure on post-graduation career search and labor force participation for high school students in Delhi." AEA RCT Registry. December 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12620-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Students are selected to complete 80-hour, in-person internships at SMEs near their schools. The internship will require that they come on time and have interaction with clients and working adults.

Intervention Start Date

2024-05-01

Intervention End Date

2025-09-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

1. Completion of the internship
2. Student willingness to pay for career advice book
3. Parent willingness to pay for career counseling services for their child
4. Probabilty student enters a scholarship competition
5. Probability student shows up for an in-person interview
6. Beliefs and job-search behavior post graduation: reservation wage, jobs applied to each month
7. Probability of marriage

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

1. Student self efficacy and motivational general attitudes
2. Beliefs around the value of labor force exposure before first job

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Both will be measured via survey. 1 will be constructed using standard instruments from the psychology literature. 2 will be measured directly via question and baseline and endline.

Experimental Design

We randomly vary priority for an 80-hour internship at a small-medium enterprise near school. Some students will be randomly paid for completion of an internship. We have a small placebo group, where students are informed they will be paid at the endline, regardless of internship completion status.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

We randomize at the student level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

50 schools

Sample size: planned number of observations

4000 students

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1,600 Control, 1,000 internship without pay, 1,000 internship with pay, 400 placebo.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

University of Chicago SBS IRB

IRB Approval Date

2023-06-16

IRB Approval Number

IRB23-0626

Analysis Plan