PROJECT
India: Livelihood Skills and Opportunities for Girls in Allahabad

In India, 40 percent of girls ages 15–19 are married. Livelihood activities could help reframe the second decade of girls’ lives from a period when they are often confined to the home and devoted to preparation for marriage and childbearing to a time when they can develop as individuals and gain knowledge and skills that are the foundation for a more productive adulthood. Moreover, by offering an alternative source of social status, work is also likely to delay marriage and provide women with greater control over their sexual and reproductive lives.

The Population Council, in collaboration with CARE India, has tested the feasibility and impact of adding four additional components to a reproductive health project in urban slum areas of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh:

• counseling about savings formation and livelihoods;

• training in vocational skills;

• assistance in opening savings accounts; and

• follow-up support

Using a quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design that contrasted the experimental group with a comparison group of adolescents, the project investigated whether the intervention:

• increased girls’ physical mobility and contact with individuals outside the family;

• enhanced girls’ skills development and sustained use of these skills;

• altered work aspirations of girls and encouraged more progressive gender role norms; 

• reduced gender differentials in time use; and

• increased girls’ reproductive health knowledge

The baseline survey, conducted in May 2001 among over 3,000 adolescents ages 14–19 and their parents, revealed substantial differences between boys and girls with respect to mobility, time-use patterns, savings and work experience, and reproductive health knowledge. Data collection for the project’s endline survey began in March 2003 and was completed in July 2003. Data entry and cleaning were completed in October 2003. The analysis showed that participation of unmarried adolescent girls increased in all project activities. Vocational counseling, follow-up support for unmarried adolescent girls, and encouragement to form group savings schemes were included in a subsequent CARE project, Action for Slum Dwellers’ Reproductive Health.

Analysis of the endline data in combination with the baseline data indicated that although the livelihoods program was acceptable to parents and feasible to implement, the project had only a minimal impact on the behavior and attitudes of adolescent girls in the experimental slums. The greatest changes between the baseline and the endline surveys were found in those outcomes that most closely reflected the content of the intervention. Girls in the intervention group were significantly more likely to have knowledge of safe spaces, be a member of a group, score higher on the social skills index, be informed about reproductive health, and spend time on leisure activities than the matched control respondents. No effect was found on gender role attitudes, mobility, self-esteem, work expectations, time use, or labor market work likely because of the short duration of the intervention, as well as the limited number of times that groups convened. Those designing future livelihoods interventions with adolescent girls are advised to extend the period of time spent on group formation, negotiation and social skills, and vocational skill development.

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Population Council researchers

Barbara S. Mensch, Monica J. Grant, Paul C. Hewett, Mary Philip Sebastian

Non-Council collaborators

Dale Huntington (World Health Organization)

CARE India

Centre for Operations Research and Training, India

Donors

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Population Council

UK Department for International Development

US Agency for International Development

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