81334 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database Getting Girls into School" Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia Author(s) Deon Filmer, Norbert Schady Contact nschady@worldbank.org Country Cambodia Organizing Theme Education and Skills Status Completed Intervention Category Cash Transfer Sector Social Protection Increasing the schooling attainment of girls is a challenge in much of the developing world. The authors evaluate the impact of a program that gives scholarships to girls making the transition between the last year of primary school and the first year of secondary school in Cambodia. They show that the scholarship program had a large, positive effect on the school enrollment and attendance of girls. Their preferred set of estimates suggests program effects on enrollment and attendance at program schools of 30 to 43 percentage Abstract points. Scholarship recipients were also more likely to be enrolled at any school (not just program schools) by a margin of 22 to 33 percentage points. The impact of the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) program appears to have been largest among girls with the lowest socioeconomic status at baseline. The results are robust to a variety of controls for observable differences between scholarship recipients and nonrecipients, to unobserved heterogeneity across girls, and to selective attrition out of the sample. Gender Connection Gender Focused Intervention Gender Outcomes Female school enrollment, school attendance IE Design Regression Discontinuity The program selected 93 lower secondary schools, and within each of these schools approximately 45 girls who were beginning seventh grade. The scholarship program Intervention awarded each of these girls $45 each. Once a girl is eligible for the scholarship, she is automatically eligible to continue receiving the scholarship for 3 years. The girl can maintain the scholarship if she maintains a passing grade and has less than 10 absences. Intervention Period 2004-2005 93 schools were selected for the scholarship program. Within each school, 45 girls received Sample population a scholarship. Approximately 30% of the girls in each school applied for the scholarship. Girls who applied were awarded points based on responses on their application. In order to select the girls, girls above a certain amount of points would be selected for the program. Comparison conditions The RDD design compares girls who are just eligible from the program to girls who are barely ineligible for the program. Unit of analysis Student Level Last updated: 14 August 2013 1 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database Evaluation Period 2004-2005 Enrollment and attendance rates among scholarship recipients were about 30% higher than they would have been in the absence of the program. The impact of the program is largest Results for the most disadvantaged girls, girls with the lowest socioeconomic status, girls with lower parental education, and girls living the furthest from school. Since this is a non-experimental study using cross-sectional data, there is concern for Primary study limitations selection on unobservables and selective transfers from program schools to other schools. Funding Source World Bank Research Support Budged, The Bank Netherlands Partnership Program Filmer, D., & Schady, N. (2008). Getting girls into school: evidence from a scholarship Reference(s) program in Cambodia. Economic development and cultural change, 56(3), 581-617. Link to Studies http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/533548 Microdata Last updated: 14 August 2013 2