03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Improving the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2022-10-13) Bergstrom, Katy ; Özler, Berk

This paper conducts a large, narrative review of interventions that might plausibly (a) increase educational attainment, (b) delay childbearing, and/or (c) delay marriage for adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using 108 interventions from 78 studies, predominantly in LMICs, the paper summarizes the performance of 15 categories of interventions in improving these outcomes. Transfer programs emerge as broadly effective in increasing educational attainment but their effects on delaying fertility and marriage remain mixed and dependent on context. Construction of schools in underserved areas and the provision of information on returns to schooling and academic performance also increase schooling. No category of interventions is found to be categorically effective in delaying pregnancies and reducing child marriages among adolescent girls. While targeted provision of sexual and reproductive health services, including vouchers and subsidies for family planning, and increasing job opportunities for women seem promising, more research is needed to evaluate the longer-term effects of such interventions. We propose that future studies should aim to measure short-term outcomes that can form good surrogates for long-term welfare gains and should collect detailed cost information.
Factors Associated with Educational and Career Aspirations of Young Women and Girls in Sierra Leone

(Taylor and Francis, 2021-09-05) Allmang, Skye ; Rozhenkova, Veronika ; Khakshi, James Ward ; Raza, Wameq ; Heymann, Jody

Empirical data on the aspirations of young women and girls in post-conflict settings are scarce. This article analyses the factors associated with the educational and career aspirations of 2,473 young women and girls in Sierra Leone. Findings indicated that over three-quarters of our sample aspired to continue their studies up to the university level, and two-thirds aspired to obtain a formal sector job requiring an education. These findings are important for discussions of aid which can accelerate economic advances and opportunities within advanced economies for both women and men.
Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment: Evidence from Indonesia

(The University of Chicago Press, 2021-04) Halim, Daniel ; Johnson, Hillary C. ; Perova, Elizaveta

While a large body of literature has documented positive impacts of institutional childcare on maternal labor supply, thinner evidence is available on whether childcare can also nudge women into better jobs in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of public preschool expansion in Indonesia on women’s labor supply and characteristics linked to the quality of their employment, including employment types, earnings, and hours. We rely on a triple difference approach exploiting variations in preschool availability over time and across districts, as well as preschool-age-eligibility cutoffs, in a panel dataset spanning over 20 years. We find strong positive impacts on employment—an additional public preschool per 1,000 children in the district increases women’s work participation by 9.1 percent. However, it is primarily driven by an increase in unpaid family work, typically in household farms or businesses. We do not find impacts on earnings or hours of work. These findings are likely explained by the modality of preschools in Indonesia: operating for only 3 hours per day, they are unlikely to enable women to secure a paid job outside the home with longer time commitments.
Engaging Men to Transform Inequitable Gender Attitudes and Prevent Intimate Partner Violence: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

(BMJ Global Health, 2020-05-27) Vaillant, Julia ; Koussoubé, Estelle ; Roth, Danielle ; Pierotti, Rachael Susan ; Hossain, Mazeda ; Falb, Kathryn L

Globally, one in three women worldwide report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime. The study objective was to understand the effectiveness of Engaging Men through Accountable Practice (EMAP), a group-based discussion series which sought to transform gender relations in communities, on intimate partner violence (IPV), gender inequitable attitudes and related outcomes. Interventions engaging men have the potential to change gender attitudes and behaviours in conflict-affected areas. However, while EMAP led to changes in gender attitudes and behaviours related to perpetration of IPV, the study showed no overall reduction of women’s experience of IPV. Further research is needed to understand how working with men may lead to long-term and meaningful changes in IPV and related gender equitable attitudes and behaviours in conflict areas.
What Explains Uneven Female Labor Force Participation Levels and Trends in Developing Countries?

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2019-08) Klasen, Stephan

Rapid fertility decline, a strong expansion of female education, and favorable economic conditions should have promoted female labor force participation in developing countries. Yet trends in female labor force participation rates (FLFP) have been quite heterogeneous, rising strongly in Latin America and stagnating in many other regions, while improvements were modest in the Middle East and female participation even fell in South Asia. These trends are inconsistent with secular theories such as the feminization U hypothesis but point to an interplay of initial conditions, economic structure, structural change, and persistent gender norms and values. We find that differences in levels are heavily affected by historical differences in economic structure that circumscribe women's economic opportunities still today. Shocks can bring about drastic changes, with the experience of socialism being the most important shock to women's labor force participation. Trends are heavily affected by how much women's labor force participation depends on their household's economic conditions, how jobs deemed appropriate for more educated women are growing relative to the supply of more educated women, whether growth strategies are promoting female employment, and to what extent women are able to break down occupational barriers within the sectors where women predominantly work.
Financial Constraints and Girls’ Secondary Education: Evidence from School Fee Elimination in The Gambia

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2019-02) Blimpo, Moussa P. ; Gajigo, Ousman ; Pugatch, Todd

We assess the impact of large-scale fee elimination for secondary school girls in The Gambia on the quantity, composition, and achievement of students. The gradual rollout of the program across geographic regions provides identifying variation in the policy. The program increased the number of girls taking the high school exit exam by 55%. The share of older test takers increased in poorer districts, expanding access for students who began school late, repeated grades, or whose studies had been interrupted. Despite these changes in the quantity and composition of students, we find robustly positive point estimates of the program on test scores, with suggestive evidence of gains for several subgroups of both girls and boys. Absence of learning declines is notable in a setting where expanded access could strain limited resources and reduce school quality. Our findings suggest that financial constraints remain serious barriers to post-primary education, and that efforts to expand access to secondary education need not come at the expense of learning in low-income countries like The Gambia.
Returns to Investment in Education: A Decennial Review of the Global Literature

(Taylor and Francis, 2018-06-07) Psacharopoulos, George ; Patrinos, Harry Anthony

In the 60-plus year history of returns to investment in education estimates, there have been several compilations in the literature. This paper updates Psacharopoulos and Patrinos and reviews the latest trends and patterns based on 1120 estimates in 139 countries from 1950 to 2014. The private average global return to a year of schooling is 9% a year. Private returns to higher education increased, raising issues of financing and equity. Social returns to schooling remain high. Women continue to experience higher average returns to schooling, showing that girls’ education remains a priority.
Career Choices and the Evolution of the College Gender Gap

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-06) Rossi, Martin A. ; Ruzzier, Christian A.

The opportunity cost for men of pursuing a college degree has been rising due to the increase in the rewards to becoming a superstar in occupations typically dominated by men, like professional sports. This suggests a novel explanation for the evolution of the college gender gap (which shows a clear upward trend in female college enrollments relative to male enrollments). Causal evidence from a natural experiment in European soccer markets—that provides exogenous variation in the expected earnings for men associated with a superstar path—supports this explanation: an increase in male earnings has a significant positive effect on the ratio of female to male tertiary enrollment in college education. Results are robust to using different samples of countries, to allowing for regional time trends, to analyzing lagged effects, to changing the definition of the treatment, and to exploiting alternative definitions of exposure.
Girls' Education and Child Marriage in West and Central Africa: Trends, Impacts, Costs, and Solutions

(Taylor and Francis, 2018-04-26) Male, Chata ; Wodon, Quentin

Within the context of women’s lack of empowerment, the issues of child marriage and low educational attainment for girls are prominent, especially in West and Central Africa. Using survey data for 21 of the 25 countries in West and Central Africa, this article analyzes trends over time in educational attainment for girls and child marriage. Over the last two and a half decades, not accounting for differences in population sizes between countries, according to the latest DHS and MICS surveys available in each country, completion rates increased on average by 24 points, 14 points, and 8 points at the primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary levels, respectively. The prevalence of child marriage decreased by about 8 points over that period. Clearly, progress at the secondary level has been weaker than at the primary level, probably in part due to the persistence of high rates of child marriage in many countries. The article suggests that ending child marriage should improve girls’ educational attainment, and conversely, improving girls’ educational attainment should help reduce child marriage. This, in turn, could have major impacts toward contributing to empowering women more broadly. A review of impact evaluations for pilot interventions suggests how ending child marriage and improving educational attainment for girls could be done, with potentially large economic benefits not only for girls and their future household, but also for the region as a whole.
As Good as the Networks They Keep?: Improving Outcomes through Weak Ties in Rural Uganda

(The University of Chicago Press, 2018-04) Vasilaky, Kathryn N. ; Leonard, Kenneth L.

We examine an intervention randomized at the village level in which female farmers invited to a single training session were randomly paired with farmers whom they did not know and encouraged to share new agricultural information throughout the growing season for a recently adopted cash crop. We show that the intervention signi ficantly increased the productivity of all farmers except of those who were already in the highest quintile of productivity, and that there were signifi cant spillovers in productivity to male farmers.