Empowering Adolescent Girls : Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Uganda
Nearly 60 percent of Uganda's population is aged below twenty. This generation faces health and economic challenges associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), early pregnancy, and unemployment. Whether these challenges are due to a la...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/12/17385460/Empowering-adolescent-girls-evidence-from-a-randomized-control-trial-in-Uganda http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25529 |
| Summary: | Nearly 60 percent of Uganda's
population is aged below twenty. This generation faces
health and economic challenges associated with human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), early pregnancy, and
unemployment. Whether these challenges are due to a lack of
information and or vocational skills is however uncertain. A
programme was conducted to provide: (i) vocational training
to run small-scale enterprises; and (ii) information on
health and risky behaviors. The programme conducted,
positively impacts behaviors on both economic and health
margins. On economic margins, the intervention raises the
likelihood that girls engage in income generating activities
by 32 percent mainly driven by increased participation in
self-employment. On health related margins, self-reported
routine condom usage increases by 50 percent among the
sexually active, and the probability of having a child
decreases by 26 percent. Strikingly, the share of girls
reporting sex against their will drops from 21 percent to
almost zero. The findings suggest combined interventions
might be more effective among adolescent girls than
single-pronged interventions aiming to improve labor market
outcomes solely through vocational training, or to change
risky behaviors solely through education programmes. |
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