Abstract
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, secondary school completion is low, and female educational attainment lags male educational attainment. Many governments and NGOs try to address this issue by providing material support such as free uniforms and scholarships. We explore a potential alternative tool for increasing female human capital investment. A recent branch of economics, pioneered by James Heckman, has posited that differences in long-term outcomes (including wages and educational attainment) are in part driven by differences in non-cognitive skills (Heckman and Rubinstein, 2001). Non-cognitive skills are typically both difficult to measure and change, particularly among older children, but neuroscience research in recent years has shown that interpersonal skills may be best learned by early adolescents (Choudhury et al., 2006). If this is the case, programs that affect interpersonal skills may offer policymakers an unusual opportunity to improve non-cognitive skills within the school system. Motivated by this literature, we test whether improving interpersonal skills can play a role in increasing female education. We conducted an experiment in which we randomly provided eighth grade girls in Zambia with a two-week, after-school negotiation skills training. To disentangle the effects of the negotiation skills from the effects of participating in an all-girls training with a female, Zambian role model, we further randomized some girls to receive a placebo training (called “safe space”) where girls met to play games under the supervision of the mentor but did not receive negotiation skills training. We then collected data on the effect of negotiation in two ways. First, we conducted a lab-in-the-field investment game to better understand how negotiation affected parents’ investment decisions. Second, we collected administrative data on girls’ educational and life outcomes such as school fee payment, attendance, grades, and pregnancy status up to when the girls would be enrolled in tenth grade.