which receipt of training is instrumented by the initial assignment to treatment. All results are estimated as OLS (or IV); nonlinear estimations (probits) for binary variables are consistent with the OLS results and are available on request.

Recall that at baseline, nearly four in ten (38 percent) young women in the study population – treatment and control – have at least one income-generating activity. At mid-line, the number of participants in the treatment group engaged in activities to earn income increased by 18 percentage points, relative to the control group. Economic activity also increased among members of the control group between the baseline and midline surveys, but the increase was much greater among the treatment group. The estimate of 18 percentage points translates into a 47% increase in employment, from a baseline employment rate of 38%. This is a significantly greater improvement than has been seen in many other similar programs around the world. Other interventions have occasionally found large impacts (e.g. the Chile and Peru _Jovenes_ programs), but most programs have yielded relatively modest impacts. Moreover, as one review noted, the successful _Jovenes_ programs rely heavily on a positive macroeconomic context – particularly in terms of job creation (Ibarrarán and Rosas 2009). In the absence of robust private employment growth, job skills development programs have generally performed poorly.

Table 3a disaggregates the outcome into those EPAG participants who received job skills training and those who received training and support in enterprise development. This table shows first that the training worked, in the sense that those who received job skills (JS) training were more likely to find wage employment than those in the control group, and more likely to find wage employment than to open their own business. Similarly, those who received business development (BDS) training were more likely to establish their own businesses than those in the control group, and also more likely to open their own business than to find wage employment. This table also shows that own-account employment is more common than wage employment, and that the EPAG program was more successful in enhancing self-employment than wage employment. At baseline, about five percent of the EPAG JS participants were engaged in wage labor; at midline, this increased by 15 percentage points among the JS beneficiaries. At baseline, about 37 percent of the EPAG BDS participants were engaged in own businesses; at midline, this increased by 20 percentage points among the BDS participants. On average, the probability that participants in the BDS track found employment increased roughly twice as much as among those in the JS track. This does not necessarily say anything about the relative quality of the training offered – it most likely reflects the structure of the labor market in urban Liberia. The vast majority of employment is in the informal sector, and in own-account activities. According to the 2010 Labor Force Survey, 68 percent of all employed Liberians, and 75 percent of employed women, work in the informal sector (LISGIS 2011), and nearly 70 percent of employed women are self-employed. Even among participants in the JS track, those with some income-generating activity at midline were equally likely to be self-employed as employed in wage labor. The JS training, although primarily focused on wage employment, did include a short module on self-employment basics in order to equip participants for the possibility that many would not find wage employment.

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