The Skills to Pay the Bills: Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training
The causal impacts of on-the-job soft skills training on the productivity, wages and retention of female garment workers in India
Abstract
The authors evaluate the causal impacts of on-the-job soft skills training on the productivity, wages, and retention of female garment workers in India. The program increased women’s extraversion and communication, and spurred technical skill upgrading. Treated workers were 20 percent more productive than controls post-program. Wages rise very modestly with treatment (by 0.5 percent),with no differential turnover, suggesting that although soft skills raise workers’ marginal products ,labor market frictions are large enough to create a substantial wedge between productivity and wages. Consistent with this, the net return to the firm was large: 258 percent eight months after programme completion.
This research was funded under the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) Programme
Citation
Adhvaryu, A., Kala, N., & Nyshadham, A. (2017) The Skills to Pay the Bills: Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training
Links
Soft Skills to Pay the Bills: Evidence from Female Garment Workers