Abstract
Female labour force participation in India is among the lowest in the world. Women are significantly less likely to enter paid employment than men, and when they do, they tend to enter low-return occupations that are considered appropriate for women. Constraints on occupational choice include the attitudes of family members and peers, as well a lack of role models in non-traditional occupations. In this project, we aim to test the impact of these different constraints on the enrolment of women in vocational training programmes, and their subsequent entry into paid employment, as well as occupational choice. In one intervention, we randomly provide women and their family members with exposure to role models, who are young women from a similar geographic and socioeconomic background who have successfully completed training and started careers in high-return occupations. In another intervention, we additionally create a social setting where women and their families can interact with others like them, which can encourage them to successfully take on perceived social norms against entering non-traditional occupations. We measure the impact of these interventions on take-up of training, entry into high-return occupations, entry into paid employment, whether women migrate for work, as well as gender attitudes and beliefs about support for women’s work.