any change in the amount of time spent on domestic work,<sup>25</sup> we have no evidence that these shifting norms have affected the division of labor in practice. Further research would be needed to disentangle the issues of changing gender norms in theory versus practice, and attitudes toward norms in general versus those at play in one’s own household.

# **5. Cost Effectiveness**

Although the first task of any evaluation is to demonstrate the effectiveness of an intervention – that is, whether or not the program actually has a measurable and attributable impact – this is not enough to recommend the program to policymakers. This requires also that the program can show that it is worth spending scarce public resources to do it. Ideally, a program worth doing will be both effective and costeffective. One can measure cost-effectiveness in terms of the number of physical outputs produced or outcomes achieved, e.g. the number of people employed per dollar spent, or one can measure achievements in terms of the value of the benefits acquired relative to the amount of money spent. In the case of the EPAG, the unit cost of training in Round 1 was roughly $1200 for the Business Skills track and $1650 for the Job Skills track. The EPAG Job Skills track consisted of more hours of training, and required purchasing practical equipment for each trade area. Some Job Skills trainers, especially those with more specialized skills and experience, were also more costly. The estimated unit costs cover trainer salaries (EPAG has mostly college-educated trainers), training materials (not including curriculum development), training venue rental, administrative and overhead costs of the training provider, childcare costs, event costs (job fairs, etc.), stipends to mentors, trainee transport allowances and completion bonuses. The costs also cover the withheld incentive payment to the training provider, based on how many trainees find employment.

Although high relative to most developing-country budgets, these costs are well within the range of the _Jovenes_ youth training programs implemented in Latin America (cf. Ibarrarán and Rosas 2009). The _Jovenes_ programs were estimated to cost between $700 and $2000 per participant, depending on the country (Betcherman 2007). Not only were the costs of the EPAG program within international norms, the program itself is also cost-effective. Given the large earnings gains demonstrated in this study (44 USD per month for Business Skills, and 11 USD per month for Job Skills, as shown in Table 4A), and assuming the gains persist at the same level, the cost of the Business Skills training is recouped within three years.<sup>26</sup> For the Job Skills training, given the higher costs and lower benefits, it would take approximately 12 years to recoup the training costs, making it less cost-effective. The project has revamped the Job Skills training substantially in light of these findings, condensing the training timetable and seeking formal agreements in advance with employers to hire EPAG graduates.

> 25 A limited number of time use questions were included in the survey of EPAG participants, but the results are not reported in this paper.

> 26 In addition to the assumption of persistence of earnings gains, other assumptions include income accruing from month 7, no discounting, and an exchange rate of 70 LD= 1USD. With an annual discount rate of 5%, the Business Skills training costs are still recouped within 3 years while the Job Skills training costs would take 17 to 20 years to recover.

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