Persistent gender gaps in entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions, and actions

This dissertation reports the results of a longitudinal, randomized control trial that examines the impact of a 40-hour youth entrepreneurship education program (EEP), above and beyond a market economics control group, for English speaking-youths aged 18-35 living in Khujand, Tajikistan. This is one of the first studies in the field of youth entrepreneurship education to use random assignment as the source of exogenous variation, enabling causal claims to be made regarding the impact of the program on participants' perceived desirability, perceived behavioral control, entrepreneurial intentions, and entrepreneurial actions. Three waves of data were collected over a period of two years. The first wave (pretest) was collected prior to the start of the program, the second wave was collected at the end of the 40-hour program (post-test), and the third wave (follow-up) was collected one year after the conclusion of the EEP. Results show that the program has no effect, above and beyond a market economics control group, on any of the outcomes at timing of posttest or follow-up. However, there is a fixed effect of gender, with females have lower average scores on all of the outcomes except perceived behavior control. This study has implications for the design, implementation, and evaluation of youth EEPs. Keywords: Youth entrepreneurship; student entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship education; theory of planned behavior; gender; entrepreneurial attitudes; perceived desirability; perceived behavioral control; entrepreneurial intentions; entrepreneurial action; theory of change; Tajikistan; transitioning economy.