From Training to Earning : The 7-Year Impact of Dual Apprenticeships on Youth Employment

This paper studies the long-term impacts of dual apprenticeships on youth employment in a high-informality labor market. A Randomized Controlled Trial in Côte d'Ivoire with four follow-up surveys collected over seven years shows that dual apprenticeships have sustained impacts: youth earnings increase by 14 to 20 percent two to five years after program completion. Gains are observed across the earnings distribution, and the share of youth in working poverty — with earnings below the minimum wage — decreases by 11 percent. Importantly, results highlight a distinct pathway whereby training raises earnings through self-employment, with no impact on access to wage employment. Youth perform more complex, non-routine tasks, consistent with improved technical skills and productivity. In a setting where formal wage jobs are rare, these findings show that dual apprenticeships constitute an effective and inclusive skilling model that raises earnings in self-employment and reduces working poverty.