Girls Arise Into Adulthood: The Long-Run Effects of Negotiation Training

Ashraf et al. (2020) conducted an RCT to evaluate the impact of negotiation skills training on girls’ educational outcomes in Zambia. The research team found that a two-week negotiation training given to eighth-grade girls significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years, including reduced dropout rates and increased progression to secondary school. Importantly, treatment effects did not fade out over time. Following the 2013 study, the Ministry of Education adapted the “Girls Arise” negotiation training to the national life-skills curricula. There is substantial policy demand for rigorous measurement of the long-term effects of negotiation training on education and female labor market participation. Twelve years after the original study, girls are now in their early- to mid-20s, making important decisions about higher education, work, marriage, and reproduction. We will track and survey the original RCT sample and leverage administrative data to (i) measure long-term treatment effects on education, labour market participation, empowerment, health, and fertility; and (ii) assess whether negotiation skills help women overcome barriers to entry high-return male-dominated sectors in higher education and the labor market. By empowering young women to see obstacles as solvable, negotiation training can improve mental and economic well-being in the long run, potentially reducing gender gaps in education and labour market outcomes and mitigating power asymmetries within relationships. This study will contribute to filling the knowledge gap on the causal long-run effects of life-skills training interventions more than a decade after the original treatment.