Socioemotional Skills in Sub-Saharan Africa : Validating and Comparing Behavioral and Self-Reported Measures. Policy Research Working Paper 11201; © World Bank Group, with C. Delavallade, S. Das, A. Clerkin, C. Gonzalez and J. Jamison.
This paper validates a new set of behavioral measures for socioemotional skills across three Sub-Saharan African countries—Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Tanzania—and compares them to widely used self-reported measures. The behavioral measures demonstrate strong psychometric properties and are significantly associated with key outcomes, particularly in employment and income. Relationship management skills emerge as the most consistent predictors of economic outcomes, especially when measured behaviorally. Behavioral measures show weaker associations with social desirability bias and stronger correlations with economic outcomes, and self-reports are more predictive of mental health. In two countries, changes in behavioral socioemotional skills over time significantly predict labor market improvements—an effect not observed with self-reports—highlighting their value for program evaluation. Correlations between measurement types are modest, with variation often driven more by measurement modality than underlying skill differences. These findings suggest that behavioral measures can offer more reliable instruments for policy and intervention design in low-income settings.
Assessing Workplace Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills in Africa: The ESTEEM Framework. Policy Research Working Paper; 11128. © World Bank, with V. Marsh, C. Delavallade, S. Das, T. Koroknay-Palicz and D. McDaniel.
Social, emotional, and behavioral skills are critical for success across life domains, yet research is constrained by a lack of internationally validated measures for adult populations. Existing tools often assess isolated skills and are predominantly validated in Western, school- aged samples. To address these limitations, this study developed and validated the Effective Socio-emotional skills To gain Economic EMpowerment framework, comprising 14 distinct social, emotional, and behavioral skills with prior demonstrated relevance to economic outcomes. The framework’s self-report scales were tested among adults in six Sub-Saharan African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania), spanning diverse cultural and linguistic contexts (English, French, Hausa, Swahili, and Yoruba). The results confirm the psychometric validity of the scales, supporting their utility in both research and practice. The framework categorizes skills as intrapersonal or interpersonal, awareness or management, and agentic or communal, providing a robust tool to unpack which skills matter for employment and earnings and how this differs by gender. By enabling exploration of social, emotional, and behavioral skills in underrepresented and cross-cultural contexts, use of the Effective Socio-emotional skills To gain Economic EMpowerment self-report scales advances theoretical and practical understanding of social, emotional, and behavioral skills in adult populations.
Gendered Effects of Nudges to Boost Youth Training Enrollment: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire Working Papers 737, Center for Global Development, with J. Annan, E. Koussoubé, J. Tassy, C. Delavallade and D. Evans.
Policy Brief here
Despite evidence of positive returns, many youth training programs in Sub-Saharan Africa have low take-up. Behavioral interventions, or nudges, have been proposed as low-cost tools to influence such decisions. This study reports on a randomized experiment in Côte d’Ivoire testing a behavioral nudge—varying the content and recipient of text message reminders—to increase enrollment in a youth employment program. We compare two framings—highlighting the free cost of the program versus the long-term career benefits—sent either to youth alone or to both youth and their nominated social contacts. Messages sent to youth alone have no impact. In contrast, targeting both youth and contacts significantly affects enrollment, with gendered effects: among young men, both messages reduce enrollment, while among young women, enrollment decreases when the message highlights free cost. These impacts are driven by youth with male contacts. Qualitative data suggest that trust and perceived program quality shape responsiveness, particularly among those unfamiliar with the program. The findings underscore how message framing and social context influence program take-up, and how misaligned messaging can discourage participation.
Empowering Adolescent Girls through Safe Spaces and Accompanying Measures in Cote d’Ivoire, Policy Research working paper ; 10721; Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group, with O. Boulhane, C. Boxho, D. Kanga and E. Koussoubé.
This study uses a cluster-randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of a large-scale women and girls empowerment program on sexual and reproductive health and empowerment outcomes in Côte d’Ivoire. The study assesses and compares the impact of diverse strategies aimed at equipping girls with life skills and sexual and reproductive health knowledge, provided through well-established safe spaces, in isolation or in combination with livelihood support interventions, or with initiatives designed to engage boys and men and community and religious leaders. The findings show that one year after the end of the interventions, safe spaces alone have a moderate impact on girls’ empowerment, while safe spaces combined with husbands’ and future husbands’ clubs are the most impactful. Combining safe spaces with livelihood support interventions leads to improvements in adolescent girls’ employment outcomes, as expected. Finally, the findings show that engaging leaders in the context of safe spaces interventions yields mixed results on girls’ empowerment.
The Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 on Adolescents’ School Attendance in Sub-Saharan Africa, Policy Research working paper ; 10472. World Bank, Washington, DC, with A. B Kis; C. Boxho; I. Gaddis and E. Koussoubé.
As the COVID-19 pandemic led to a historic and widespread shutdown of schools across the world, including in Sub-Saharan Africa, there were general concerns that girls would be disproportionately affected. This study analyzes the effects of the pandemic on the school attendance of adolescent girls and boys in six African countries. The study uses individual-level data on children’s school attendance collected as part of high-frequency phone surveys. Contrary to expectations, the study reveals that there is no evidence to suggest that gender gaps widened during the pandemic. If anything, gender gaps appear to have narrowed in some countries. Further in-depth analysis shows that while being a descendent of the household head, having parents with at least primary education, and above-median household wealth were associated with a higher probability of school attendance among adolescents before the pandemic, these factors lost their salience in explaining school attendance in the aftermath of the pandemic. These results suggest that some traditionally protective forces were eroded during the COVID-19 crisis.
Steered Away from the Fields: Short-Term Impacts of Oxen on Agricultural Production and Intra-Household Labor Supply, Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 10516; Impact Evaluation series Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group, with A. Brudevold-Newman and A. Donald
Policy Brief here
Mechanization has the potential to boost agricultural production and reduce poverty in rural economies, but its impacts remain poorly understood. This paper randomizes the subsidized provision of a pair of traction oxen among 2,546 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire through a matching grant. The analysis finds positive impacts on households’ agricultural production during the agricultural season overlapping with oxen delivery, and additional increases in total land holdings and use of complementary inputs in the subsequent season. The intervention affected household members in different ways, with wives and daughters substantially reducing their work on the farm—especially in districts with more stringent gender norms around handling oxen. In these districts, introducing traction oxen resulted in women shifting to off-farm work. The intervention also improved girls’ health and reduced school dropout among boys. The results provide novel evidence on the human development effects of mechanization, while highlighting how social prescriptions mediate the impacts of technology within the household.
Two Heads Are Better Than One : Agricultural Production and Investment in Côte d’Ivoire, Policy Research Working Papers;10047. World Bank, Washington, DC, with A. Donald and M. Goldstein
Policy brief available here, Voxdev here
Low levels of agricultural productivity and investment hinder economic growth in developing countries. This paper presents results from a field experiment in Côte d'Ivoire, which randomized wives’ participation in an agricultural extension training for rubber, a male-dominated export crop that takes six years to start producing latex but requires upfront care. The training included a planning portion, consisting of filling out an action plan for rubber farming over the next two years, and a skills portion. In the without-wife group, households witnessed a 26.4 percent drop in the value of the crop harvested and a 18.4 percent drop in productivity, with labor going to planting rubber seedlings. In the group with wife participation, households had higher levels of investment (planting 20 percent more rubber seedlings) and were able to maintain pre-program levels of agricultural production on older trees and other crops. These households increased their labor hours and agricultural input use, resulting in no drop in overall production or productivity. This outcome did not come through increased skills or incentives. Rather, underlying these results are increases in planned agricultural management by wives, increased retention of the action plan, and a reduction in gendered task division. The results show how including women in economic planning can improve the efficiency of household farm production and promote higher levels of investment.
Gender Differences in Socio-Emotional Skills and Economic Outcomes: New Evidence from 17 African Countries, with K. Ajayi, S. Das, C. Delavallade and T. Ketema
Policy brief available here
Using data from 41,873 individuals across 17 African countries and 13 studies, this paper maps data from various self-reported scales to 10 socio-emotional skills and examine gender differences in these skills and their relationship with education and earnings. Apart from self-control, the findings show a significant male advantage in self-reported skills—men have an aggregate socio-emotional skill level 0.151 standard deviations higher than women, equivalent to the socio-emotional skill gained over 5.6 years of education. This is robust to controlling for positive self-concept. Closing the gender gap in education would close 17percent of this gap. While overall socio-emotional skill and education are positively correlated for both men and women, women do not have a positive correlation with education for some individual socio-emotional skills. The male advantage in socio-emotional skills increases at higher education levels. Socio-emotional skills are associated with higher earnings, especially for women. However, the specific skills associated with higher earnings differ by gender. Interpersonal skills are more strongly correlated with earnings for women than for men, and measures of these skills are often underrepresented, which indicates a key direction for future research. The paper further examines differences in the relationship between socio-emotional skills and earnings by levels of education and occupation. It discusses the implications of these results for interventions seeking to hone women’s socio-emotional skills for labor market success and to address the gender norms that may perpetuate gaps in socio-emotional skills.
The Double African Paradox, Height and Selective Mortality in West Africa, Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 71, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
Capital exit from developing countries. Measurement and correlates, w. Denis Cogneau
Media coverage: Après Swiss Leaks, il faut aussi lutter contre la fuite de capitaux dans les pays pauvres. Le Monde, Feb 2015.
Women's Economic Empowerment in Africa, Possible Solutions from Impact Evaluations. A question of Development, Synthesis of AFD Studies and Reserach. January 2023, No 67.
Unpacking Socio-Emotional Skills for Women’s Economic Empowerment, with C. Delavallade. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief, Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.
A Key Ingredient for Africa's Growth: Investing in Women's Entrepreneurs, with F. Delavelle. Private Sector & Development magazine #33 - Harnessing the private sector to reduce gender inequality. April 2020.
L'autonomisation économique des femmes africaines. Grandes lignes: le podcast de la recherche sur le développement de l'AFD. March 2024.
What are the consequences of Corona for women in Africa? One World No Hunger, Jul 16, 2020.
Empowering adolescent girls in the time of COVID-19 Let’s Talk Development, World Bank Blogs, Jun 8, 2020.