MAI SEKI

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated school closures exacerbated the global learning crisis, especially for children in developing countries. Teaching at the right level is gaining greater importance in the policy arena to recover the learning loss. However, the focus on the noncognitive abilities of students influencing their ability to bridge learning gaps is still very limited. We investigate the long-term effects of the "self-learning at the right level" program, which is found to be effective in the short run in improving the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of disadvantaged students in Bangladesh. We revisit these students almost 6 years after the intervention to find that its effects on non-cognitive abilities remain perceptible, whereas those on cognitive abilities might have been attenuated. This study is among the few to examine the long-term effects of experimental educational interventions and shows that such interventions can effectively sustain students’ non-cognitive abilities amid academic disruptions.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>While previous studies have examined the link between maternal employment status and child development, the results remain inconclusive, and the underlying mechanisms are not yet well understood. A potential explanation for the mixed findings is the omission of mothers’ return home time from work, a factor that has yet to be tested in the literature. To address this gap, this study examines the relationship between mothers’ time of returning home and their children’s locus of control using a nationwide child–parent survey in Japan. The results of the entropy balancing method demonstrate that the daughters of mothers who return after 7 p.m. are more likely to believe that they lack control over their life outcomes, whereas this effect is not observed for mothers who return home by 7 p.m. This relationship is mediated by the deterioration of family relationships. Consistent with prior research, the negative association is more pronounced in households with higher socioeconomic status, while it is mitigated when fathers return home early or when children cohabit with their grandparents, highlighting the importance of caregiving by all family members. Given the increasing number of married women in full-time and managerial positions and the diffusion of teleworking, these findings are relevant for policymakers.</jats:p>

This study examines whether leaders’ unethical behaviours discourage people from participating in activities initiated by community-based programmes, and whether the impact of unethical leadership is moderated by the genders of leaders and community members. We conducted a vignette experiment with 1,421 respondents in rural Sri Lanka. We find that village residents perceive: (1) leaders’ unethical conduct discourages residents’ intention to engage in community activities and (2) leaders’ unethical conduct reduces female residents’ engagement more than male residents’, regardless of leaders’ gender. The findings underscore the importance of addressing the low motivation issue, particularly among women, to engage in community activities.