Advancing the Agency of Adolescent Girls

Eric V. Edmonds, Benjamin Feigenberg, Jessica Leight

NBER Working Paper No. 27513
Issued in July 2020
NBER Program(s):Children, Development Economics, Economics of Education

Can life skills be taught in early adolescence? Using a clustered randomized control trial, this study analyzes the impact of a school-based life skills intervention in grades six and seven within a sample of 2,459 girls in Rajasthan, India. Our evidence suggests that the intervention is successful in developing stronger life skills including increased agency, more equitable gender norms, and stronger socio-emotional support. Girls also drop out of school at a lower rate: we observe an approximately 25 percent decline in dropout that persists from seventh grade through the transition to high school.

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w27513