Hybrid job training improves participation for women in Nepal, study finds

URBANA, Ill. – Globally, women’s workforce participation is about 25% lower than men’s, often due to barriers such as domestic responsibilities and cultural norms. Vocational training can increase employment opportunities, but women may not be able to attend training programs that require them to be away from home. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in collaboration with an international research team, explored whether hybrid distance learning can improve accessibility to job training for rural women in Nepal.

“We had been working in Nepal for many years with Heifer International, evaluating some of their livestock transfer programs. One problem they were trying to solve was increasing access to animal health care practitioners in rural areas. In particular, they were looking to train rural women to provide these services,” said Sarah Janzen, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

Community animal health workers (CAHWs) offer basic veterinary services in remote rural areas. CAHW practitioners in Nepal must complete a government-certified study program that requires a 35-day stay in a training center. 

“Recruiting women to train for the job, even after removing financial barriers, proved challenging. One possible reason for this seeming lack of interest was that women were burdened by household responsibilities and they couldn’t leave their homes to complete the training program,” Janzen said.

The research team worked with Heifer International and the government of Nepal to develop a hybrid training format that reduces the time away from home. Participants still need to travel to a training center for a five-day orientation and a ten-day module of practical hands-on experience with livestock. However, they complete the bulk of the training remotely, using a tablet to access educational videos and interactive modules.

Training content is similar in both formats, including topics such as animal breeding, anatomy, drug administration, disease symptoms and diagnostics, castration, fodder production, and bookkeeping. After completing the program, participants take a comprehensive final examination and register as a certified CAHW with their local authorities. 

The researchers asked local livestock marketing cooperatives to nominate women for the CAHW training program, and nominees were randomly assigned to either in-person or hybrid training. In both groups, the women’s average age was 27, and they had completed 10 years of schooling. Around 80% were married, 97% owned livestock, and 40% to 50% had a household income below the poverty line.

“We developed this training program to see if women are more interested when you provide the opportunity to train remotely at home. And we show that it was dramatically effective. We found that distance learning increases training completion rates from 30% to 51%,” Janzen said.

“Furthermore, the women who are trained under this alternative platform are just as knowledgeable and skilled as those who are traditionally trained, and their job performances are similar.”

Janzen noted there can still be additional barriers to participation, such as cultural norms and expectations. The study focused on one factor – whether leaving home for an extended period of time affects training completion.

“One finding that stands out is that women with babies were much more likely to take up the training if they didn’t have to attend in person for 35 days. Going for a week, then working from home before going for another stay, was much more acceptable to them,” she said.

While no women with infants chose to enroll in traditional training, 45% of women with an infant completed the distance learning course. Furthermore, 60% of women who had their own source of income (such as small business owners) completed the hybrid program, compared to 7% in the traditional training program, indicating that distance learning is much more compatible with existing work obligations.

CAHW practitioners provide animal care in many developing countries, and the training platform could potentially be transferred to other areas, Janzen said. 

“The program was designed using the government of Nepal’s curriculum; everything is in the local language and tailored to the local context. However, with a relatively small investment you could take the general concept and modify it to other locations,” she said.

“Our findings matter tremendously, not only for designing a similar program in other contexts, but much more broadly. We show that hybrid and remote training can boost women’s workforce participation in general,” Janzen concluded. 

The paper, “Going the Distance: Hybrid Vocational Training for Women in Nepal,” is published in the Journal of Development Economics [DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103414].  Authors include Sarah Janzen, Nicholas Magnan, Conner Mullally, Shruti Sharma, and Bhola Shrestha.