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Living Up to Expectations: How Job Training Made Women Better Off and Men Worse Off / Paloma Acevedo, Guillermo Cruces, Paul Gertler, Sebastian Martinez.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Acevedo, Paloma.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23264.
- NBER working paper series no. w23264
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Other Title:
- Living Up to Expectations
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.
- Summary:
- We study the interaction between job and soft skills training on expectations and labor market outcomes in the context of a youth training program in the Dominican Republic. Program applicants were randomly assigned to one of 3 modalities: a full treatment consisting of hard and soft skills training plus an internship, a partial treatment consisting of soft skills training plus an internship, or a control group. We find strong and lasting effects of the program on personal skills acquisition and expectations, but these results are markedly different for young men and young women. Shortly after completing the program, both male and female participants report increased expectations for improved employment and livelihoods. This result is reversed for male participants in the long run, a result that can be attributed to the program's negative short-run effects on labor market outcomes for males. While these effects seem to dissipate in the long run, employed men are substantially more likely to be searching for another job. On the other hand, women experience improved labor market outcomes in the short run and exhibit substantially higher levels of personal skills in the long run. These results translate into women being more optimistic, having higher self-esteem and lower fertility in the long run. Our results suggest that job-training programs of this type can be transformative - for women, life skills mattered and made a difference, but they can also have a downside if, like in this case for men, training creates expectations that are not met.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- March 2017.
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