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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

Last updated

April 12, 2017 2:37 PM EDT

Location(s)

Country

Bangladesh

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Rachel Glennerster

Affiliation

JPAL

Contact Primary Investigator

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, Rachel Glennerster and Rachel Glennerster. 2017. "Empowerment of Adolescent Girls: Education, Health, and Delayed Marriage." AEA RCT Registry. April 12. http://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/204/history/16433.

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

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

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