Empowerment of Adolescent Girls: Education, Health, and Delayed Marriage

Last registered on April 12, 2017
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Empowerment of Adolescent Girls: Education, Health, and Delayed Marriage
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000204
Initial registration date
January 15, 2014

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
January 15, 2014, 2:15 PM EST

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

Last updated
April 12, 2017, 2:37 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Bangladesh
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Rachel Glennerster
Affiliation
University of Chicago
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Erica Field
PI Affiliation
Duke University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2007-01-01
End date
2017-06-01
Keywords
Education, Health
Additional Keywords
Female Empowerment, Early Marriage, Adolescent Girls, Rural Bangladesh
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Despite considerable emphasis on improving female education and discouraging early marriage, adolescent girls in Bangladesh have a high drop-out rate and almost two-thirds marry before the legal age of 18 (DHS 2011). Those who marry young have less education, higher fertility, poorer health, more restricted mobility, and more unequal relations within the household, all of which are important constraints to labor market productivity and entrepreneurial success.

This research follows a large sample of girls from 460 communities in rural Bangladesh who were exposed to a large-scale empowerment program run by Save the Children. Beginning in 2007, girls in randomly selected communities received social competency, financial literacy and livelihood training designed to help them negotiate for their own needs and provide the basis for successful future economic empowerment. Others received a non-cash incentive to delay marriage until age 18, with the potential to significantly change marriage outcomes, including decision-making power dynamics between women, their husbands and in-laws. A final group received a combination of the incentive and empowerment program.

This study follows these girls as they transition into adulthood and examines the long-run impact of delaying marriage, increasing schooling attainment and adolescent empowerment on adult outcomes such as fertility, maternal and child health, and labor market participation.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Field, Erica and Rachel Glennerster. 2017. "Empowerment of Adolescent Girls: Education, Health, and Delayed Marriage." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.204-4.0
Former Citation
Field, Erica and Rachel Glennerster. 2017. "Empowerment of Adolescent Girls: Education, Health, and Delayed Marriage." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/204/history/16433
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2007-12-01
Intervention End Date
2010-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Education, Health, Marriage, Empowerment, Financial Resources
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The empowerment outcome is constructed from indices of mobility, gender attitudes, bargaining and freedom of dress. The financial resources outcome is constructed from indices on labor force participation, income, decision-making, savings behavior, credit investment, and financial literacy. A more detailed description of variables composing each index is provided in the analysis plan.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Save the Children USA in Bangladesh implemented a broad range of interventions aimed at empowering adolescent girls. The program, Kishoree Kontha (Bangla for “adolescent girls’ voices”), was carried out in five sub-districts in the south central region of Bangladesh over 2 years and concluded in August 2010. A conditional noncash transfer was added to the Save the Children program. The interventions, at the village level, included the random assignment of the following packages:
• Basic Package: community mobilization, social competency, self-help study support for in-school girls and literacy sessions for illiterate girls.
• Livelihoods Package: Basic package plus financial competency training.
• Conditional Stipend/Oil Incentive Package: non-cash incentive in the form of cooking oil conditional on the girl being unmarried. The value of the transfer was designed to offset the financial cost to families in increased dowry from delaying their daughter's marriage.
• Full Package: Livelihoods Package plus Conditional Stipend.
• Savings Cross-Cut: villages were randomly chosen from the Livelihoods and Full packages to receive support in establishing girls’ savings clubs.
• Control Group: 153 villages in total were assigned as comparison.
The packages are structured to reflect different approaches to adolescent girl empowerment in order to separate out the role of different constraints on economic empowerment of women.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was done at the natural village level. Out of a sample of 460 target villages, 307 villages have been randomly selected to receive one of intervention packages above. The remaining villages serve as the comparison group.
Randomization Unit
Village-level, stratified by union (a geographical group of villages) and size of village.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
460 villages
Sample size: planned number of observations
11,350 adolescent girls at baseline. A census was taken of all households with adolescent girls in target villages (over 80,000 households at baseline).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
76-77 villages in each treatment arm, 153 villages in control.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
MIT Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2013-12-13
IRB Approval Number
0612002074
IRB Name
Innovations for Poverty Action IRB
IRB Approval Date
2013-07-01
IRB Approval Number
121.11June-007
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Endline Subsample Analysis Plan

MD5: 75700b82f82998ef3685f7022bcd5c29

SHA1: 6ac85f68846d87e222dce6365c4c0607000808de

Uploaded At: April 12, 2017

Endline Subsample Analysis Plan - Details on variables

MD5: 026876bddf4cc120f52ab6b15e3fc50c

SHA1: 59a179a5170f058772dda29cc6cf231ac891c1cd

Uploaded At: April 12, 2017

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials