Soft skills training helps men find jobs, but not women, in Tanzania

A World Bank study found that training young people in 'soft skills' like empathy and self-control does not help women find jobs. Only men who were already looking for work saw modest, lasting employment gains from the programs.

Development programs often assume that teaching 'soft skills' is a universal solution for youth unemployment. This paper shows that this assumption is wrong, at least for women in urban Tanzania. It means that millions of dollars spent on these programs might be wasted if they do not also address specific barriers women face in the job market.