81519 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database Vocational Education Voucher Delivery and Labor Market Returns: A Randomized Evaluation Among Kenyan Youth Author(s) Joan Hicks, Michael Kremer, Isaac Mbiti, Edward Miguel Contact jrhamory@berkeley.edu Country Kenya Organizing Theme Economic Opportunities and Access to Assets, Education and Skills, Voice and Agency Status Ongoing (as of August 2013) Intervention Category Training Sector Education This report describes the ongoing Technical and Vocational Vouchers Program (TVVP) in Kenya and provides early results from the intervention. This report focuses on program take- up, the demand for vocational training and the impacts of the information intervention on Abstract institution and course selection, participant attendance, the short-term impacts of training on labor market expectations and outcomes for a representative subset of program participants, and training center characteristics. The report also provides some suggestive evidence on the supply-side impacts of the program. Gender Connection Gender Focused Intervention Gender Outcomes Gender disaggregated vocational training, gender norms IE Design Randomized Control Trial Implementation began in 2008 with the recruitment of out-of-school youths. Study participants were drawn from the Kenya Life Panel Survey, an unusual on-going panel dataset of detailed educational, health, and cognitive information for over 7,000 adolescents in western Kenya. The students showed interest in attending a vocational education program by attending 2 preliminary program interest meetings and providing a letter of support from a local authority or school administrator. A random half were awarded a voucher for vocational training, a value of approximately $460, while the other half served as the control group. Of the voucher Intervention winners, a random half were awarded a voucher that could only be used in public (government) institutions, while the other half received a voucher that could be used in either private or public institutions. The project also included a cross-cutting information intervention, which exposed a randomly selected half of all treatment and control individuals to information on the expected labor market returns to vocational schooling in Kenya. The information intervention highlighted the large gap between earnings in traditionally female-dominated trades and traditionally male-dominated trades. Additionally, to encourage women to enter male- dominated careers, the intervention included a movie about successful female car mechanics. Intervention Period The intervention covered fees for a training course lasting up to two years. The sample consists of 2163 youth aged 18-30, 63% of whom are female. Most of the Sample population participants live in Busia District in rural Western Kenya. On average, the participants had 8.8 years of schooling prior to the start of the program. Last updated: 14 August 2013 1 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database There are 4 primary possible treatment arms: voucher and information intervention, voucher Comparison but no information intervention, no voucher but information intervention, no voucher and no conditions information intervention. There are additional arms for unrestricted versus restricted voucher winners. Unit of analysis Individual Level The Program launched in Early 2009 and there was follow up in Mid 2010, the program will Evaluation Period continue to be evaluated through 2014 Program take-up was high, with 74% of voucher winners attending a vocational training program for at least one term. Notably, there are no significant gender or age differences in take-up. Unrestricted voucher winners were more likely to attend vocational training, with participation rates at 79% compared to 69% for restricted voucher winners. Only 4% of the control group attended vocational training. Costs not covered by the voucher (transport, room and board), as well as maternity, pregnancy and childcare issues were the most common self- Results reported constraints to attendance. Participants most frequently reported that they intended to enroll in tailoring/dressmaking (33%) and driving/mechanic (25%). Career preferences were strongly segregated by gender. Only 9% of women expressed preference for a male dominated course and only 3% of men expressed preference for a female dominated course. Females who received the information intervention were about 9 p.p. more likely to prefer male dominated course and 5 p.p. more likely to enroll in one. Through mid-2010, the retention rate was 65% for males and 60% for females although this difference is not statistically significant. Follow-up data collection on these individuals is ongoing at the time of this report. It is Primary study premature to examine labor market outcomes because, at the time the report was published, limitations many participants were still participating in the training programs. Bank-Netherland Partnership Program, Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund, GAP, Berkeley Population Center, International Growth Centre, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation Funding Source (3IE) / Global Development Network, National Institutes for Health, National Science Foundation Hicks, J. H., Kremer, M., Mbiti, I., & Miguel, E. (2011). Vocational Education Voucher Reference(s) Delivery and Labor Market Returns: A Randomized Evaluation among Kenyan Youth. Report for Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) Phase II, World Bank. Link to Studies http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHDOFFICE/Resources/VocEd_SIEF_Report_2011- 04-07_final.pdf, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHDOFFICE/Resources/KenyaE2P.pdf Microdata Last updated: 14 August 2013 2