Can community service grants foster social and economic integration for youth? A randomized trial in Kazakhstan

Integrating youth into communities and labor markets is a major challenge for developing countries, and incentives for community service are an increasingly popular tool to achieve this goal. We use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the Kazakhstan Youth Corps (KYC), a program comprising cash grants for community service projects and life skills training, on social capital for a sample of youth aged 18–29. We find little evidence that engaging youth in civic service and training has any positive effects one year post-intervention; there is no shift in attitudinal indices of social capital and no reported increase in volunteering or donations. Moreover, there is no effect of the intervention on secondary outcomes (life skills and human capital), and some evidence of a negative effect of the training-only intervention on the probability of reporting any income-earning activity.

Duke Scholars

Author Eric Ndahayo Mvukiyehe Political Science