BPO Recruitment Information Shock
RCTReview
In rural India, low awareness of new, high-paying white-collar employment opportunities like business process outsourcing (BPO) restricts female labor force participation and maintains low expectations for women's market employment outside the home [1-3].
Picture this
Think of a village surrounded by a high fog where villagers do not know a bustling marketplace offering good wages exists just beyond the hill. When a messenger visits the village annually to hand out maps, clear job descriptions, and salary details directly to young women, the fog lifts, enabling qualified individuals to navigate straight to those newly visible jobs [4, 5].
What the evidence says
Women aged 18 to 24 in treatment villages were 4.6 percentage points more likely to be employed in the BPO sector and 2.4 percentage points more likely to work for pay outside the home compared to the control group [8].
- Who was studied
- 160 rural villages (80 treatment, 80 comparison) across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, India; 3,200 households surveyed before and after the intervention [4, 6, 7].
- How
- Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT); paid experienced recruiters conducted one prescheduled half-day information session per year for three consecutive years in treatment villages for women only, offering free job placement assistance for proactive follow-ups [4, 5].
What to do
Deploy experienced industry recruiters to deliver structured, women-only annual information sessions regarding urban job specifications, qualifications, compensation levels, and placement contacts in rural communities with low information access [5].
From the source
"Women aged 18 to 24 in treatment villages were 4.6 percentage points more likely to be employed in the BPO sector than their peers in comparison villages and 2.4 percentage points more likely to work at all for pay outside the home." [8]
Improving_Labor_Market_Opportunities_to_Increase_Womens_Employment.pdf