Impact brief, Issue 10

IMPACT BRIEF: Empowering Young Women through Business and Vocational Training: Evidence from Rural Upper Egypt

The Taqeem Impact Brief Series documents how organizations measure outcomes of their employment programmes, the tools that are applied and the findings and recommendations that emerge to assist them in improving impacts and programme design.

This brief summarizes the findings of an impact evaluation of a large-scale training and empowerment intervention in rural Upper Egypt, a region with some of the lowest rates of female labour force participation and highest gender disparities in the Arab World. The intervention offered business, vocational and life skills training combined with business development services and civic education to 4,500 young women in 30 villages in rural Upper Egypt. The evaluation of the intervention used difference-in-difference and propensity score matching and included 5,704 survey respondents in the follow-up data collection round. Results of the study concentrate on outcomes related to labour market
status and career aspirations, intra-household decision-making and attitudes to gender roles.