Socioemotional Skills in Africa: Development and Validation of 14 Measures in Sub-Saharan Africa with Implications for Economic Outcomes

Smita Das, World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab/Innovations for Poverty Action
Victor Marsh, MIT Sloan School of Management
Dawn McDaniel, Mystical Innergies, LLC
Tricia Koroknay-Palicz, World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab
Clara Delavallade, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Lea Rouanet, World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab

Despite increasing policy interest in the role of soft skills in economic outcomes, the field has been hampered by a lack of measurement tools tailored explicitly for sub-Saharan Africa, the focal region for many interventions in socioemotional skill development. To address this limitation, we developed and tested 14 socioemotional skill measures across five Sub-Saharan countries, encompassing four languages (English, French, Hausa, and Swahili), with a total sample size of 10,151 participants, of which 50% were women. The findings showed internal consistency, content convergence to skill definition, and content distinctiveness for the measures. Slight but consistent gender differences emerged in self-reported skill levels within the region. Our concurrent analyses revealed nuanced implications for hypothesized economic effects, with socioemotional skills predicting future employment (but not income levels). These measures hold potential for future research and interventions to enhance economic and social outcomes in the region.