Can we increase girls’ educational outcomes through endowing them with negotiation skills?
Read “Negotiating a better future: How interpersonal skills facilitate intergenerational investment” by Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low, and Kathleen McGinn here.
Across the developing world, many girls face difficulties in persuading their parents to enrol them in secondary education. Whilst financial incentives have often been analysed as a means to encourage female school enrollment, there has been little focus on the role of negotiation skills. In this VoxDevTalk, Kathleen McGinn discusses an innovative experiment in Zambia, which assesses the impact of negotiation skills on female educational outcomes. Fascinatingly, the researchers find that teaching negotiation skills significantly increased female educational outcomes, particularly for high-ability girls.
Editors' note: This VoxDevTalk is based on this IGC project.