TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Resnjanskij, Sven
AU  - Ruhose, Jens
AU  - Wiederhold, Simon
AU  - Woessmann, Ludger
        TI  - Can Mentoring Alleviate Family Disadvantage in Adolescence? A Field Experiment to Improve Labor-Market Prospects
        PY  - 2021/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 14097
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp14097
        AB  - We study a mentoring program that aims to improve the labor-market prospects of school- attending adolescents from disadvantaged families by offering them a university-student mentor. Our RCT investigates program effectiveness on three outcome dimensions that are highly predictive of adolescents' later labor-market success: math grades, patience/social skills, and labor-market orientation. For low-SES adolescents, the one-to-one mentoring increases a combined index of the outcomes by half a standard deviation after one year, with significant increases in each dimension. Part of the treatment effect is mediated by establishing mentors as attachment figures who provide guidance for the future. The mentoring is not effective for higher-SES adolescents. The results show that substituting lacking family support by other adults can help disadvantaged children at adolescent age.
        KW  - mentoring
KW  - disadvantaged youths
KW  - adolescence
KW  - school performance
KW  - patience
KW  - social skills
KW  - labor-market orientation
KW  - field experiment
        ER  -