# **2.2 Data Collection**

Our analysis draws on four main sources of data. First, applicants completed an online short application form and a subsequent longer baseline survey that focused on pre-program employment history and status, labor supply, socio-demographic characteristics, and soft skills.<sup>15</sup> The online baseline and the public lotteries were completed in April 2021, prior to the start of the training, which took place from the end of April 2021 through the second week of May 2021. We conducted three online follow-up surveys: the first follow-up was conducted between August and October 2021, an average of 4 months after the conclusion of the training; the second was conducted in February and March 2022, about 10 months after the training; and the final followup was completed in July through September 2022, an average of 15 months after the training.<sup>16</sup> To mitigate the high risk of respondents not completing a long online survey, the questionnaire was relatively short and focused primarily on labor market modules. Participants were compensated for their time with phone credit. The third follow-up included the same soft-skills assessment used in the baseline.<sup>17</sup> Attrition rates were remarkably low in all of our follow-up surveys. We successfully surveyed 96 percent of the baseline sample for the 4-month and 10month follow-ups, and 97 percent for the 15-month follow-up. Attrition is not associated with treatment status in any of our three rounds of data collection.<sup>18</sup> We believe that one of the key reasons of this high response rates, unusual for online surveys, is that participants were selected into the study among those who have completed both an online application form, and an online baseline survey, which implied that they were already familiar with this survey methodology. Moreover, the sample consists of highly educated youth who are more likely to be comfortable using digital tools. We also found that conducting phone call reminders to those who had not completed the online survey after a few days was crucial to significantly increase response rates.

# **2.3 COVID-19 and the Rwandan Labor Market**

As in many other countries, Rwanda responded to increased COVID-19 cases with a series of full and partial lockdowns in March-June 2020, January-February 2021, and June-August 2021 (International Monetary Fund, 2021). These lockdowns and the subsequent re-opening of the

> 15Appendix Figure A2 summarizes the project implementation timeline together with the various data collection rounds. A small subset of the sample completed the soft-skills portion in-person, just before the in-person lotteries that determined program allocation.

16At each round, the staff from Innovations for Poverty Actions sent the link to participants by email and text messages. Respondents who had not completed the online survey after 3 weeks were called and offered the opportunity to complete the survey over the phone. Only 6% of respondents chose this method, on average, over the three survey rounds.

> 17We gave participants the option to stop the survey before the soft skills module, be paid half the participation fee, and complete it at another time. However, very few participants made use of this option and the larger majority completed the full survey at once.

> 18Appendix Tables A1-A4 demonstrate sample balance at each survey round while Appendix Table A5 reports regression results testing whether treatment status predicts attrition for each of the survey rounds.

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