Africa Gender Innovation Lab

95 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/25446
The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to generate evidence on how to close the gender gap in earnings, productivity, assets and agency. The GIL team is currently working on over 50 impact evaluations in 21 countries with the aim of building an evidence base with lessons for the region.

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Country: South Africa × Sub-Saharan Africa: Africa inequality × Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 5: Gender Equality ×

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    Overcoming Information Asymmetry in Job Search: The Power of a Reference Letter
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04) Carranza, Eliana; Pimkina, Svetlana
    The labor market is characterized by information gaps between work seekers and prospective employers, particularly when it comes to hiring low-skill entry level workers. Information asymmetries about workers’ skills can result in poorer matches, lower productivity for employers, and increased inequity for the unemployed. One approach to resolving the asymmetry is introducing a formal referral system: reference letters from former employers. The authors finds that reference letters improve firms’ screening ability and employment outcomes, especially for women. Despite their high value, the use of reference letters in job applications is low, partly due to work seekers underestimating their value.
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    Overcoming Behavioral Biases in Job Search: The Value of Action Planning
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04) Carranza, Eliana; Pimkina, Svetlana
    Job search is a largely self-regulated process, subject to behavioralbiases that lead to sub-optimal search and employment outcomes.Within this context, we designed, implemented and tested anaction-planning tool to promote greater job search intensity.We find that action planning helps unemployed youths to follow through on their job search intentions, and adopt a more efficient and effective search strategy. Greater search efficiency and effectiveness translates to sizeable improvements in employment outcomes. Given that a rising number of young people globally are not enrolled in education, employed, or searching for work it is particularly important to understand how to optimize the job search process. There is suggestive evidence that in the presence of high and persistent unemployment, South African youth are becoming increasingly discouraged in their job search.