Which Socio-Emotional Skills Matter for Economic Empowerment: Measuring and Comparing Skills in Sub-Saharan Africa

• In Event: Exploring the role of socio-emotional skills for educational attainment

Proposal

As the emphasis on socio-emotional skills (SES) training grows in development policy, practitioners increasingly ask which skills matter most and how they can be effectively measured in low and middle income countries. Very few measures have been validated in these contexts, and the measures most commonly used in policy research cover a small range of SES. With this study, a team of psychologists and economists have collaborated to develop a framework of 14 SES, designed to be as exhaustive and mutually exclusive as possible, with theory and evidence linking them to economic empowerment. This ESTEEM (Effective Socio-emotional skills To gain Economic EMpowerment) framework is also designed to examine expected gender differences and span the range of SES, covering awareness of one's self and others, as well as self management and relationship building. Each skill is measured by both a self-reported scale and at least one behavioral measure. Utilizing data from projects in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Cote d’Ivoire, this study explores the psychometric properties of these measures, examines the relationship between self-report scales and behavioral measures for each skill, and compares their heterogeneity with respect to gender, cognitive ability, and related skills. We also conduct exploratory analysis and examine predictive validity to examine whether particular skills stand out, and consistently indicate improved economic empowerment or wellbeing. Initial findings indicate that, relative to self-reported scales and household informant interviews, behavioral measures are more strongly correlated with economic outcomes, but sometimes negatively. Self-reported scales are more correlated with outcomes related to mental health. For employment, skills such as perseverance, personal initiative, problem solving and decision-making, networking, negotiation, and collaboration stand out; while several skills are indicative of well-being, particularly emotional regulation.

Authors

• Smita Das, Innovations For Poverty Action

• Aidan Clerkin

• Clara Delavallade, World Bank

• Tricia Gonwa Koroknay-Palicz, World Bank

• Christopher Gonzales

• Julian Jamison

• Victor L. Marsh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Dawn McDaniel, PhD

• Léa Rouanet, The World Bank