Work-progression and Productivity Toolkit

The Bangladeshi garment industry was instrumental in expanding women’s employment opportunities in the urban job market. However, the positions available to women at factories remain mostly limited to those at the machine-operator level. Building on previous researchers (Macchiavello et al., Challenges of Change: An Experiment Training Women to Manage in the Bangladeshi Garment Sector, 2015) researchers propose to design a shorter and less costly training program for female operators that focuses on soft skills, especially building confidence. Randomizing individual workers into three groups (soft skills training, soft + hard skills training, and control), researchers will determine whether soft skills training or hard skills training is a more effective and efficient means to promoting female advancement. If one of the trainings is found to be effective, IFC and Better Work are interested in scaling-up the intervention.