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Trial Title
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Gender-Sensitive Training and Employer Incentives to Improve Women’s Labour Market Outcomes
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Impact Evaluation of Gender Sensitive intervention to improve women’s labor market outcomes in Kenya
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Abstract
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Despite considerable educational improvements, the number of women employed or looking for work in much of the developing world, including East Africa, is low and has been for some time. Evidence indicates this problem is due to gender-based employment segregation. Compared to men, women are more likely to work in low-productivity sectors, less-profitable businesses, unpaid family employment, or informal jobs. Social and cultural norms that discourage or prevent women from pursuing education or working in certain types of jobs lead to a mismatch between their skills and the available jobs, driving down the supply of and demand for female employees.
This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of measures to support young women making the transition from school to work in Kenya and provide recommendations to address the barriers they face, on both the supply and demand sides. Specifically, this project will evaluate gender-sensitive skills training (for potential employees) and incentives for employers in terms of whether they improve young women’s employment quality and opportunities, empowerment, and well-being. This evaluation will show which measure, or the combination thereof, is most effective and most suitable for scaling up to ease young women’s school-towork transitions in Kenya and other developing countries.
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This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of measures to support young women making the transition from school to work in Kenya, and to provide scalable recommendations to address the barriers they face, on both the supply and demand sides. Specifically, the intervention proposed for evaluation is a course that provides soft skills training, information, and motivation to women about the opportunities and possibilities for women entering the labor market. The intervention aims at improving women’s labor market outcomes.
The project will generate new evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions to address gender gaps in labour market participation and gender-based employment segregation in the context of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs in Kenya. Our research method employs a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of the intervention.
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Last Published
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January 11, 2022 10:53 AM
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March 15, 2023 04:09 PM
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Intervention (Public)
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This project aims to test the effectiveness of gender-sensitive skills training and employer incentives to address gender gaps in labour market participation. This will be done in the context of a multifaceted Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) program implemented by a local non-government organization, CAP-Youth Empowerment Institute (CAP-YEI), which has been providing TVET to vulnerable, out-of-school youth in Kenya for the last 10 years.
Informed by local demand assessments, CAP-YEI’s Basic Employability Skills Training (BEST) curriculum is designed to help vulnerable, male and female youth (aged 18 to 25 ) who have completed primary or secondary school develop demand-oriented employability skills and link them to internships, job placements, entrepreneurship startups, and mixed livelihoods. CAP-YEI is currently involved in TVET reforms in Kenya by supporting Competence-Based Education and Training through its capacity building program, developing national curricula in various technical fields and influencing policy through research. CAP-YEI brings its extensive experience in direct youth training using the BEST model in 21 trades. It brings a deep understanding of the Kenya TVET system at the national and county levels, as well as on the ground expertise and vast networks.
The training will be organized across alternative fields. Traditionally, CAP YEI trainings are organized across seven fields: (i) hospitality, (ii) security, (iii) automotive, (iv) electrical, (v) hair and beauty, (vi) building and construction, and (vii) industrial garment and manufacturing.
Gender-sensitive training sessions will be incorporated into life-skills training sessions delivered alongside vocational training for each field. Gender-sensitive training modules cover the competencies required in creating gender awareness for sensitivity to gender issues. Through these sessions, trainees will learn about the genesis of gender equality discourse through Welfare, Women in Development (WID) and Gender and Development (GAD) approaches and they will approach international tools of legislation such as Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Through guided discussions, each class will discuss role of culture and socialization in gender inequality. The final aim of these sessions is to help trainees understand how the gender gap operates in the workplace and to empower young women—enhancing their ability to make strategic life choices and to act upon those choices—within their households, communities, and ultimately in the labour market.
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Our research method employs a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of the gender-sensitive soft-skills training to improve labour market, empowerment, and well-being outcomes for young women. This will be done in the context of four Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs implemented by four TVET centers operating under the Kenyan Ministry of Education
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Intervention Start Date
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May 03, 2021
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October 03, 2022
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Intervention End Date
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August 31, 2021
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October 31, 2022
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Employment and earnings
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Employment
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Improvement vis-à-vis control group in graduate’s labour market participation:
o Number of women graduates that are employed, 12 months after graduation
o Average income of women graduates, 12 months after graduation
o Index of job satisfaction among women graduates, 12 months after graduation
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Experimental Design (Public)
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The evaluation will compare outcomes of women assigned to the groups detailed below. Male youths will participate in the training courses as they cannot be excluded due to ethical concerns, but are not considered research subjects in this study.
• Treatment 1: gender-sensitive skills training (T1)
o Beyond the usual skills training covered under the BEST model, a gender-sensitive component will be added to life-skills training.
o In addition to the coursework, we aim to send personalized weekly messages via SMS with information about relevant labour market returns to TVET and success stories of women.
• Treatment 2: gender-sensitive skills training plus promotion and employer incentives (T2):
o Subjects in this group will receive the same treatment as T1 subjects as well as additional promotional support and a subsidy for potential employers, roughly equivalent to one-month’s salary, to be paid to their employer if the employer retains the graduate for at least 6 months. Selected graduates will also be provided with proof of the subsidy that they can share with potential employers during job interviews, and the subsidy will be announced through a graduation magazine containing graduates’ pictures.
• Control arm: no treatment (C)
o Subjects in this group will not participate in vocational training nor receive SMSs or any kind of promotion among employers.
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• Treatment: gender-sensitive soft-skills training
o Beyond the usual skills training delivered in the centers, students in classes assigned to the Treatment group will also receive a 1-hour video lesson every week for ten consecutive weeks towards the end of their TVET training. The class teacher will show the video to the students and facilitate a guided discussion.
o The lessons will address women’s challenges and constraints in the Kenyan labor market and work environment. We also intend for the final lesson of the course to feature successful role models who managed to make breakthrough in their career and whose experiences can empower other women living in similar conditions.
• Control arm: no treatment
o Subjects in this group will undergo TVET training as usual, without the addition of the gender-sensitive soft-skills lessons.
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Randomization Unit
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Individual.
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Classes
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Was the treatment clustered?
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No
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Yes
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Planned Number of Clusters
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A conservative power calculation shows the total sample needed to detect reasonable impact of these interventions involves 2398 women candidates, of which 1200 will be assigned to the control group and 599 will be assigned into each treatment arm.
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Considering attrition, we will work with a final sample of 6450 candidates in 94 classes.
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Planned Number of Observations
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A conservative power calculation shows the total sample needed to detect reasonable impact of these interventions involves 2398 women candidates, of which 1200 will be assigned to the control group and 599 will be assigned into each treatment arm.
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6450 candidates
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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A conservative power calculation shows the total sample needed to detect reasonable impact of these interventions involves 2398 women candidates, of which 1200 will be assigned to the control group and 599 will be assigned into each treatment arm.
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We will assign 50 percent of the clusters to the treatment group and the remaining 50 percent to a control group
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Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Our power calculation assumes a youth employment rate of 52 percent and an average monthly salary of 10,000
Kenyan Shillings, all informed by relevant literature and CAP-YEI experiences. We assume a 15 percent
attrition and a compliance rate of 93 percent, where the latter is informed by historical dropout rates at
CAP-YEI. This sample will enable us to detect a minimum of an 8-percentage increase in employment and
an 8 percent increase in earnings, in line with lower bound estimates commonly documented by recent
studies quantifying returns to these types of trainings.
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Based on our calculations, this sample of 6450 candidates in 94 classes will enable us to detect an 8 PP increase in labor market participation (in line with what is expected in the literature) with an 80% power at a 0.05 significance level.
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Intervention (Hidden)
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The soft-skills training model will be designed considering young women’s unique interests, preferences, and constraints. Beyond the usual skills training this will include components aimed at empowering young women—enhancing their ability to make strategic life choices and to act upon those choices—within their households, communities, and ultimately in the labour market. The course will include information about relevant labour market returns to TVET and success stories of women who succeeded in male-dominated sectors. We aim to encourage women to enter non-traditional sectors that are believed to generate higher economic returns.
The research team will hire a specialized consultant to develop the course material in video and the total length of the course (video) is expected to be about 10 hours, to be divided in 10 equal 1-hour length lessons. The lessons will be delivered once every week for ten consecutive weeks. The class teacher in each class assigned to deliver the intervention will show the video to the students and facilitate a short discussion on contents. Class teachers in each center will receive appropriate training to be able to lead the discussion in a specific manner.
A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be implemented to quantify the overall impact of the intervention. Eligible groups to this training are those TVET classes and students who are expected to graduate by December 31st, 2022. Among those enrolled students who expect to graduate in one year we will randomly create a Treatment Group and a Control Group. To avoid contamination, the assignment into treatment and control group will be made at class level. That means in each TVET center, those classes graduating before October 31st, 2022 will be grouped into two: those receiving the treatment and those assigned to the control group. We have enlisted and received list of about 280 classes and associated students, which will be assigned into two equal groups. The evaluation will compare outcomes of subjects assigned to the treatment and control groups.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Women's empowerement outcomes, in particular 1) increased decision-making power on important household decisions and 2) increased self-efficacy.
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Women's empowerment outcomes
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Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Topics topics for which to ask about decision making will include, at minimum, how the money earned by the woman is used, major household purchases,
and health care for women.
Heterogeneity analysis will be done by age, education and poverty level.
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• Improvements vis-à-vis control group in women’s empowerment
o Improvement in women’s attitude and perceptions about gender-job stereotypes, 12 months after graduation
o Greater participation by women graduates in household decision-making, 12 months after graduation
o Improvement in women’s non-cognitive skills, such as self-efficacy and locus on control.
o Improvements in women’s empowerment
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