Impact and Mechanisms: Why Education Matters for Women Empowerment: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Niger

We measure the impact of a program designed to improve adolescent girls' human capital through the distribution of secondary education scholarships in Niger, where women face among the starkest gender inequalities in the world. In order to measure the impact of this intervention, we implement a randomized controlled trial in collaboration with the government of Niger and investigate the impact of the program, as well as the different mechanisms through which greater education can (or cannot) achieve greater women empowerment.