|
Field
Abstract
|
Before
Lack of skill development has been a core policy issue in India over the last decade and ambitious skill training programs have been initialized by the government to skill the youth. However, policy reports and prior studies suggest that these programs have had little impact on the livelihood of the youth. In this context, for both wage and self-employment training programs, this study project proposes to partner with Yuva Parivartan to examine two broad research questions: (i) how does the provision of post-training assistance (access to information and resources) impact the labor market outcomes of trainees? (ii) if potential trainees are constrained on other non-skill factors (like credit, information etc.), can information on the provision of post-training assistance change the selection of trainees into acquiring skills and target these programs better? Put together, these questions could shed light on the importance of providing comprehensive support to trainees along with how alleviation of non-skill constraints can help reduce talent misallocation and target training programs better.
|
After
Lack of skill development has been a core policy issue in India over the last decade and ambitious skill training programs have been initialized by the government to skill the youth. However, policy reports and prior studies suggest that these programs have had little impact on the livelihood of the youth. In this context, for both wage and self-employment training programs, this study project proposes to partner with Yuva Parivartan to examine two broad research questions: (i) how does the provision of post-training assistance (access to information and resources) impact the labor market outcomes of trainees? (ii) does the mode of information dissemination (either through general announcements, access to experts either on public forums or private sessions have a differential impact? Put together, these questions could shed light on the importance of providing comprehensive support to trainees along with the forum through which this is provided.
|
|
Field
Trial End Date
|
Before
December 31, 2020
|
After
December 31, 2021
|
|
Field
Last Published
|
Before
September 30, 2019 02:42 PM
|
After
September 25, 2020 12:29 PM
|
|
Field
Intervention (Public)
|
Before
For wage employees, post-training will consist of the following: (a) Tailored job alerts sent to trainees via SMS for up to 3 months after the course; (b) Follow up calls made via a call centre to ensure trainee is aware of the job alerts; (c) On the job training in some cases.
For self-employed trades, assistance will comprise of: (a) 4-day course on entrepreneurship training. Training on how to start a business, calculating start up costs, coming up with a business plan etc; (b) Some preliminary sessions on entrepreneurship, also conducted during the earlier months of the course to mentally prepare students for entrepreneurship; (c) A ‘Livelihood Co-ordinator’ to assist in identifying sources of finance, writing a loan application, finding supplier/customer linkages; (d) a business plan sheet to plan activities required for the business.
|
After
Treatment A: Trainees will receive online training content such as entrepreneurship development and work-readiness videos along with engagement activities
Treatment B: Trainees will get access to wage employment/self-employment assistance from a livelihood coordinator, who is a placement officer from our implementation partner through the (public) forum of their Whatsapp group
Treatment C: Trainees will have a one-to-one (private) access to assistance from the livelihood coordinator
Control group: no post-training assistance is received
|
|
Field
Intervention End Date
|
Before
August 31, 2020
|
After
August 31, 2021
|
|
Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
|
Before
For the post-training assistance, our primary outcomes of interest are: for entrepreneurs, the probability of applying for and getting a loan, success in finding buyers and suppliers and overall, starting a successful business in a trade. For job-seekers, the primary outcomes are with regard to probability of being employed, job tenure and job satisfaction.
For the selection of applicants: primary outcomes would be fraction of male/female trainees in a trade, average years of education, family characteristics as well as cognitive and non-cognitive abilities.
|
After
The primary outcomes will examine the engagement on the whatsapp group, both public and private. They include the number of times a student participates on the group, the set of questions asked, when they are asked and who asks them. We will also examine other information shared on the whatsapp group by the trainees. Moreover, we are interested in how the above vary across gender, composition of the whatsapp groups and interactions from others on the group.
|
|
Field
Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
|
Before
A successful business would be measured with regard to the sales, inputs, profits and satisfaction of the business. Cognitive and non-cognitive ability will be measured through standard tests.
|
After
|
|
Field
Experimental Design (Public)
|
Before
Post-training assistance: We propose to take the “batch” as the unit of randomization and randomly assign batches within a training center to either get some post-training assistance or no post-training assistance. For the treatment batches, all students within the batch will receive the following post-training assistance.
Selection into training program: As participants self-select into training programs, a crucial element of their performance is whether they are reaching the pool of applicants who would benefit the most. If ultimate job performance faces significant constraints on margins other than
training (like credit constraints, information frictions, social networks) then training programs might be inefficiently attracting potential trainees who are unconstrained, rather than those who could benefit the most from the skill training absent constraints. Our evaluation will take advantage of the mobilization strategy of YP to randomize across slums/villages, advertising and promoting different aspects of the training program. In particular, mobilization for a batch will follow the following three steps:
i. A sample of potential villages/slums for a trade that are targeted for mobilization are randomly allocated to either treatment or control.
ii. During mobilization in treatment areas, apart from the information on the training program, information on the availability of post-training assistance will be provided. In control areas, only information on the training program is provided and no information on post-training assistance is provided.
iii. To maintain credibility, students coming from treatment areas are allocated to treatment batches. Students coming from the control batches on the other hand are allocated randomly to either a treatment or a control batch.
We therefore have three types of students: (A) students from treatment areas; (B) students from control areas who are allocated to treatment batches; (C) students from control areas allocated to control batches.
|
After
Among young jobseekers who expressed an interest in the program, researchers selected 1100 eligible candidates and randomly assigned them into one of the four intervention groups mentioned above.
The sample for this study covers 96 training batches containing 10-15 students each. Each batch will have its own WhatsApp group created, with an opt-out strategy for students who are not interested. Out of these 96 batches, (A) 24 groups are control groups. These WhatsApp groups will not receive any training content or (B) 24 groups are content-only groups. These WhatsApp groups will have training content posted on the group. However, they will not have access to assistance from the livelihood coordinator. (C) 24 groups are public forum groups. These WhatsApp groups will receive online training content as well as access to assistance to the livelihood coordinator. Interactions with the livelihood coordinator will be over group chats/ calls. (D) 24 groups are private forum groups. These WhatsApp groups will receive online training content as well as access to assistance to the livelihood coordinator. Interactions with the livelihood coordinator will be over personal chats/ calls.
|
|
Field
Randomization Unit
|
Before
The unit of randomization will be a trade-village/slum.
|
After
The unit of randomization will be a batch
|
|
Field
Planned Number of Clusters
|
Before
81 batches in 5 urban centres (Mumbai) and 66 batches in 5 rural centres with an average of 15 students per batch.
|
After
96 training batches
|
|
Field
Planned Number of Observations
|
Before
Approximately 2200 trainees.
|
After
Approximately 1100 trainees.
|
|
Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
|
Before
Randomization will be done at the centre-trade level. 81 batches in urban centres and 66 batches in rural centres will be allocated equally among the three treatment arms.
|
After
Randomization will be done at the training batch level. 96 will be allocated equally among the three treatment arms and control.
|
|
Field
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
|
Before
We use administrative follow up data of 1469 trainees who completed their training with YP in 48 centers across rural and urban Maharashtra to conduct our power calculations. For the intervention on post-training assistance, we consider the probability of employment/starting a business as the primary outcome that we can measure in the data. Though outcomes on selection of trainees are not easy to measure, we consider two outcomes observed in the administrative data: (i) fraction of female trainees; (ii) average education (in years) of the trainees.
There are 10 centers and our budget estimates cover approximately 150 batches, with an average of 15 trainees per batch. This results in 2200 trainees that would form our potential sample for the study. Assuming 𝛼 = 0.05 and 𝛽 = 0.2 (80% power), the minimum effect size (and percentage increase in parentheses) of the outcome variable are as follows: (a) fraction employed - 0.11 (10.86%); (b) fraction of females- 0.15 (9.92%); (c) 0.13 (3.07%).
|
After
|
|
Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
|
Before
For entrepreneurs: a secondary set of outcomes will be with respect to planning business activities (measured through their diaries, survey sheets), expanding their professional networks (upstream and downstream), co-ordination with other entrepreneurs, responses from the family. For job seekers, a secondary set of outcomes would be with respect to job search (applications, interviews, offers), job details (salary, location) as well as perceptions of the family with regard to (wage/self) employment.
|
After
For the post-training assistance, our primary outcomes of interest are: for entrepreneurs, the probability of applying for and getting a loan, success in finding buyers and suppliers and overall, starting a successful business in a trade. For job-seekers, the primary outcomes are with regard to probability of being employed, job tenure and job satisfaction.
|
|
Field
Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
|
Before
Perception of the family will be captured through question regarding their satisfaction with the candidate's employment status, remittances received, willingness to support transitions. We will also be interested in disaggregating these outcomes by gender.
|
After
A successful business would be measured with regard to the sales, inputs, profits and satisfaction of the business.
|