Work Lab: On the transition from education to employment for young women in Tanzania.

Last registered on May 13, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Work Lab: On the transition from education to employment for young women in Tanzania.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013587
Initial registration date
May 11, 2024

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
May 13, 2024, 12:41 PM EDT

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
NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Centre for Applied Research at NHH (SNF)
PI Affiliation
Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-04-05
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project investigates the transition from female secondary school students in Tanzania to the labor market, with a special focus on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and during the job search process. We utilize an experimental approach to assess the impact of work training programs on job seekers in Tanzania. This aims to address the challenges of poor job quality, workplace conditions, and the skills gap that hinder poverty reduction and productivity growth. By enrolling around 400 secondary school graduates and employing a combination of lab experiments and field evidence, the research seeks to understand the psychological mechanisms behind job search and career choices, and the effect of interventions on job satisfaction, gender equality, and poverty.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bjorvatn, Kjetil, Vivian Kazi and Arne Nasgowitz. 2024. "Work Lab: On the transition from education to employment for young women in Tanzania.." AEA RCT Registry. May 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13587-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Work-training program: The work-training program will consist of two main components. The first one is a podcast series on general work readiness, targeted at secondary school students. This content will be made available to participants. The second component is a physical two-day workshop with a focus on sexual harassment and how to navigate that. Amongst others, participants will be exposed to the story of a role model and have the opportunity to interact with her.
Intervention Start Date
2024-05-13
Intervention End Date
2024-05-26

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes are (i) employment, (ii) job search behavior, and (iii) knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes regarding sexual harassment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. Employment
a) Likelihood of being employed or doing an internship
b) Number of job offers received in the last 4 weeks
c) Main job earnings in the last 7 days
d) Main job hours worked in the last 7 days
e) Job satisfaction

2. Job search behavior
a) Likelihood and number of job applications
b) Confidence in approaching employers
c) Number of different job search strategies used
d) Attitudes on job search behavior (3 questions on acceptance of lower-paying jobs vs waiting for dream job)
e) Vignette experiment where we vary the job environment (male-dominate, female-dominated, self-employment) and pay.

3. Knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes regarding sexual harassment
a) Attitudes towards sexual harassment. We use the “Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) about Sexual Harassment tool and report the individual outcomes as well as an aggregate index as an unweighted average across all items.
b) Acceptance of sexual harassment: Index across a set of questions on acceptance of sexual harassment in several situations.
c) Beliefs on acceptance of sexual harassment by others: Same question, but based on how they think other (i) girls and (ii) boys in the population of similar age accept sexual harassment.
d) Strategies to avoid and deal with sexual harassment based on the podcast content: i) Definition and forms of sexual harassment; ii) Whom to report sexual harassment incidences.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Our secondary outcomes are (iv) experience of sexual harassment, (v) well-being and stress, (vi) willingness to compete, (vii) fertility aspirations, (viii) attitudes towards Gender-based violence and gender equality, (ix) self-esteem, (x) aspirations
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
4. Experience of sexual harassment
Measure: We use some items from the Sexual Experience Questionnaire - Workplace (SEQ-W), in which we asked the students regarding their experience and encounter with sexual harassment in different settings (school, home, workplace, etc).

5. Well-being (WB) and Stress (PSS-4)
a) Well-Being: Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Index: a higher score on Cantril Ladder indicates that the individual perceives their life as more satisfying and fulfilling.
b) Perceived stress:
The lowest score is 0, the highest is 16. Higher score indicates a higher level of perceived stress.

6. Willingness to Compete
a) Self-reported willingness to compete (on a scale from 1 to 10)
b) Choice between a fixed payment vs or variable payment with higher expected value

7. Fertility aspiration.
a) Aspired age of first child - “If you were to have a child, at what age would you aspire to have your first child?”
b) Number of children they plan to have.

8. Attitudes towards Gender-Based Violence and Gender Equality
Measure: For questions regarding gender-based violence, we will use the average across five questions on whether it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife in specific situations. For the second component, gender equality, we use two statements regarding leadership and education.

9. Self-esteem
Measure: We follow the survey questions measuring self-esteem by Glewwe et al. (2021) and report the outcomes as an average across the five questions.

10. Aspirations
We use the aspiration index on Lybbert & Wydick (2017) and originally by Snyder (1994). We construct each index based on the students’ level of agreement with five sentences (from 10-totally agree to 0-totally disagree), following the method described in Kling et al. (2007) and Anderson (2008).

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We recruit a sample of around 400 recent Form IV graduates from schools in Dar es Salaam. They take part in a baseline survey, a survey experiment, and three phone surveys during the remainder of 2024. Half of the sample will randomly be assigned to take part in a 2-day workshop, where they will receive training on how to navigate the labor market.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
400 students.
Sample size: planned number of observations
400 students.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
200 students in control, 200 students in treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
NHH Norwegian School of Economics IRB
IRB Approval Date
2024-04-25
IRB Approval Number
N/A