TY  - JOUR
AU  - Acevedo, Paloma
AU  - Cruces, Guillermo
AU  - Gertler, Paul
AU  - Martinez, Sebastian
TI  - Living Up to Expectations: How Job Training Made Women Better Off and Men Worse Off
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 23264
PY  - 2017
Y2  - March 2017
DO  - 10.3386/w23264
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23264
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w23264.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Paloma Acevedo
InterAmerican Development Bank
Washington DC
E-Mail: palomaa@iadb.org

Guillermo Cruces
CEDLAS
Univesidad Nacional de La Plata
Calle 6 entre 47 y 48
La Plata, Argentina
E-Mail: gcruces@cedlas.org

Paul Gertler
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510/642-1418
E-Mail: gertler@haas.berkeley.edu

Sebastian Martinez
Inter American Development Bank
E-Mail: smartinez@iadb.org
AB  - We study the interaction between job and soft skills training on expectations and labor market outcomes in the context of a youth training program in the Dominican Republic. Program applicants were randomly assigned to one of 3 modalities: a full treatment consisting of hard and soft skills training plus an internship, a partial treatment consisting of soft skills training plus an internship, or a control group. We find strong and lasting effects of the program on personal skills acquisition and expectations, but these results are markedly different for young men and young women. Shortly after completing the program, both male and female participants report increased expectations for improved employment and livelihoods. This result is reversed for male participants in the long run, a result that can be attributed to the program’s negative short-run effects on labor market outcomes for males. While these effects seem to dissipate in the long run, employed men are substantially more likely to be searching for another job. On the other hand, women experience improved labor market outcomes in the short run and exhibit substantially higher levels of personal skills in the long run. These results translate into women being more optimistic, having higher self-esteem and lower fertility in the long run. Our results suggest that job-training programs of this type can be transformative – for women, life skills mattered and made a difference, but they can also have a downside if, like in this case for men, training creates expectations that are not met.
ER  -