Building an equitable future? BRAC's STAR program and young women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh

Bibliographic Data

ID3886741
AuthorsNicola Banks (0000-0002-8001-0879, corresponding author), Nusrat Jahan (0000-0002-3043-2707), Tasmiah Rahman, Asma Tabassum (0000-0003-1347-3272), Joydeep Sinha Roy, Shifur Rahman Shakil (0000-0001-8231-2689)
Year2024
Volume34
Issue2
Pages177-187
Publication date2024-02-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDevelopment in Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0961-4524 • E-ISSN: 1364-9213
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09614524.2023.2229077
OpenAlexW4382937219
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited15

Equitable futures depend upon better employment outcomes for young women. We use a skills ecosystems approach to explore how youth skills development programs can maximise their impact in highly gendered societies and labour markets. While improving employment outcomes and incomes for young women, BRAC’s STAR program cannot withstand Bangladesh’s deep-rooted and socially restrictive norms and practices. Short-term successes are diluted as family pressures and commitments take precedent over young women’s economic lives. Adding a temporal dimension to the concept of skills ecosystems, these findings highlight that maintaining these impacts requires constant renegotiation and advocacy to challenge the structural obstacles within households and labour markets and within national policies and investments that constrain their longer-term economic empowerment

Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Futures contract · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

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