In Simple Words
Think of a dual apprenticeship like a driving school where a student receives a monthly living allowance to practice driving with a commercial driver while taking formal classroom lessons on traffic rules. The allowance prevents the student from dropping out due to daily living expenses, while the structured classroom teaching guarantees learning universal rules recognized by any employer.
Eligible young applicants in Cote d Ivoire
- Not assigned a formal apprenticeship
- Group used for comparison
- Assigned subsidized dual apprenticeship
- Total earnings 15% higher
About two years after the program ended. Whole apprenticeship package; no ongoing subsidy accounts for this earnings comparison.
See source →Research question
Low-skilled youth in developing economies face credit constraints and lack access to transferable vocational skills. Traditional informal apprenticeships suffer from firm commitment failures, leading to sub-optimal investment in general skill training.
Participants
N = 1,842 eligible low-skilled youth aged 18–24 and 731 micro and small informal enterprises across 7 urban localities in Côte d'Ivoire.
Study Design
Double-sided randomized controlled trial (RCT) with longitudinal baseline, midline (20 months), and endline (4 years) follow-up surveys.
Results
Four years after baseline, assigned youth experienced a 15% increase in total earnings (p = 0.0169), spent 10.83 additional months in training (p < 0.0001), and achieved a 15.1 percentage point higher rate of skill certification compared to the control group mean of 9.5%.
Takeaway
Combine direct monthly stipends to trainees with formal theoretical instruction and standardized skill certification to overcome capital constraints and firm commitment failures.
Source and citation
See source →Read alongside the research
Plain-English glossary
Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.
- Longitudinal study
A study that checks the same group of people at different times. This lets researchers examine how things change over time.
ExampleResearchers ask the same workers about their wellbeing at the start, after three months and after six months.
NICE · Longitudinal study ↗Read more about longitudinal study →- Follow-up
Collecting more information about participants later in a study to see what has happened to them. The term can also mean the length of time researchers keep track of them.
ExampleResearchers interview the same workers three months after a programme ends. That later interview is a follow-up.
GET-IT glossary · Follow-up ↗Read more about follow-up →- Baseline
The starting measurements in a study. Researchers use these to compare what participants were like at the start with what happens later.
ExampleBefore a training programme starts, researchers measure workers’ earnings. That first measurement is the baseline.
GET-IT glossary · Baseline characteristics ↗Read more about baseline →- Percentage points
The difference between two percentages.
ExampleA rise from 40% to 50% is 10 percentage points. Relative to the starting value, that is a 25% increase.
Office for National Statistics · Percentages ↗Read more about percentage points →- Randomized controlled trial
A study that uses chance, like drawing lots, to decide who receives each option being compared. Researchers compare the groups’ outcomes to estimate the effect of those options.
ExampleA lottery assigns volunteers to a training programme or a comparison group. Researchers then compare their outcomes.
GET-IT glossary · Randomized study ↗Read more about randomized controlled trial →