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Unlocking young women’s minds at scale? - Evidence from urban India

Last registered on August 29, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Unlocking future minds: The impact of a career exploration program in urban India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009977
Initial registration date
August 29, 2022

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
August 29, 2022, 2:17 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
India
Region
Delhi

Primary Investigator

Name
Ankush Asri
Affiliation
University of Konstanz
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Viola Asri
PI Affiliation
University of Konstanz
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Anke Hoeffler
PI Affiliation
University of Konstanz
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-08-02
End date
2022-11-15
Keywords
Behavior, Education, Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
education, career choices, female labor force participation, social norms, India
JEL code(s)
O10, O15, C93, I26, J13, J16
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
While transitioning from school to the labor market, students are at the risk of making myopic decisions if they lack information about available career options matching their interests and skills and are influenced by peers as well as parental and societal expectations. In India, while students from affluent backgrounds can access private career counselling services, students from poorer backgrounds typically lack this access. This reinforces the inequality of opportunity between students from poorer and richer backgrounds and is particularly concerning for girls who, due to gender norms, often do not even enter the labor force. In this project, we examine the impact of a career exploration program for students, right after finishing school, on the likelihood to continue education and skill formation, their intention to work in the future as well as confidence and locus of control.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Asri, Viola, Ankush Asri and Anke Hoeffler. 2022. "Unlocking future minds: The impact of a career exploration program in urban India." AEA RCT Registry. August 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9977-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The career exploration program will take place in-person in 4 schools for 5-7 weeks with 3 sessions of 1.5 hours per week. The program guides and encourages students to identify their strengths, interests and talents; to consider their barriers and constraints; to identify people who can support them; to identify suitable and interesting careers; and to make plans to pursue a career path aligned with their strengths and interests. Facilitators are a few years older than the participating students, typically enrolled in tertiary education, but from a similar community as the participating students. This helps the students to relate with the facilitators. In addition to the in-person meetings, facilitators will also use WhatsApp groups to interact with the students and for the students interact with each other. Further, facilitators will have bilateral conversations with the students. The partner organization conducting the career exploration program provides materials on a wide range of career paths for all participating students.
Intervention Start Date
2022-08-30
Intervention End Date
2022-10-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Intention to enroll in higher education
Intention to enroll in job-qualifying training
Intention to work in the future
Intention to work after getting married
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Choice of career-path for self-motivated reasons as opposed to parental or societal expectations
Choice of career-path matching with interests
Confidence
Locus of control
Expected age at marriage
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Methodologically, we will conduct a randomized controlled trial with an oversubscription design. That is, we first elicit who is interested in participating in the program using a short information session in combination with a short screening questionnaire. We will list all students who want to participate in the program until we reach our intended total sample size. In the next step, we will invite randomly selected 65% of the students to participate in the program.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
In office by a computer using Stata
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
241 participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
241 participants
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
157 in treatment and 84 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
IFMR Human Subjects Committee
IRB Approval Date
2022-08-09
IRB Approval Number
IRB00007107
IRB Name
Ethics Comission University of Konstanz
IRB Approval Date
2022-06-27
IRB Approval Number
27/2022
Analysis Plan