Publication: Providing Out-of-School Adolescent Girls with Skills: A Review of the Global Evidence
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2016-05
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2016-05
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Skills development offers a range of benefits to out-of-school adolescent girls and alleviates a key obstacle to youth employment in developing countries. But do increased skills lead to delays in early marriage and pregnancy? Not always, according to the available empirical evidence. Although the global evidence base on skills training is growing, and despite a theoretical basis for the relationship between skills, employment and fertility, the documented impacts of skills interventions on fertility outcomes are still too limited to draw strong conclusions. The substantial heterogeneity of what constitutes a “skills” intervention contributes to the uncertainty. The strongest evidence is in support of holistic community-based programs that combine information on sexual and reproductive health with skills training and other financial and social assets. More research is needed to isolate the impacts of these different program components and disentangle the causal pathways leading to delays in marriage and pregnancy.
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“Chakravarty, Shubha; Haddock, Sarah; Botea, Ioana. 2016. Providing Out-of-School Adolescent Girls with Skills: A Review of the Global Evidence. Policy Brief: Malawi;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24571 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Providing Out-of-School Girls with Skills(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11-25)Skills development offers a range of benefits to out-of-school adolescent girls and alleviates a key obstacle to youth employment in developing countries. But do increased skills lead to delays in early marriage and pregnancy? Not always, according to the available empirical evidence. Although the global evidence base on skills training is growing, and despite a theoretical basis for the relationship between skills, employment and fertility, the documented impacts of skills interventions on fertility outcomes are still too limited to draw strong conclusions. The substantial heterogeneity of what constitutes a "skills" intervention contributes to the uncertainty. The strongest evidence is in support of holistic community-based programs that combine information on sexual and reproductive health with skills training and other financial and social assets. More research is needed to isolate the impacts of these different program components and disentangle the causal pathways leading to delays in marriage and pregnancy.Publication Providing Out-of-School Adolescent Girls with Skills(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06-17)Promoting relevant technical and life skills is one option to empower adolescent girls by increasing their capacity to generate income and therefore by enhancing their bargaining power within the household. This Note presents a situation analysis of the current skills set and employment outcomes of adolescents (aged 15-19 years) in Malawi, with a focus on adolescent girls. The Note draws on several sources of data, including the Malawi Labor Force Survey 2013. The data reveal that female adolescents are as active in the labor market as their male counterparts, but are more likely to be unemployed and earn less. 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The high prevalence of child marriage and teenage pregnancy among Malawian girls greatly contributes to the high fertility and population growth trends, and is also closely interrelated with a range of economic and socio-cultural determinants that perpetuate a vicious cycle for the poorest and most vulnerable girls and have costly consequences for them and for the nation as a whole. In order to initiate the potential for a demographic dividend, Malawi will need to initiate a demographic transition. Reducing child marriage and teenage pregnancy can significantly contribute to the fertility declines needed to accelerate this demographic transition and would lead to better life outcomes for adolescent girls and better opportunities for the next generation. Accordingly, this series of policy briefs focuses on four key areas of interventions (or pillars) as follows: (i) maintaining girls in school; (ii) equipping out-of-school girls with skills; and (iii) beginning a family and supporting girls to adopt healthy lifestyles; and (iv) addressing the child development needs of children born to teenage mothers.
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