Over the past two decades, sports programs have proliferated as a mode of engaging youth in development projects. Thousands of organizations, millions of participants, and hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in sports-based development programs each year. The underlying belief that sports promote socioemotional skills, improve psychological well-being, and foster traits that boost labor force productivity has provided motivation to expand funding and offerings of sport for development (SFD) programs. We partnered with an international NGO to randomly assign 1200 young adults to a sports and life skills development program. While we do not see evidence of improved psychosocial outcomes or resilience, we do find evidence that the program caused a 0.12 standard deviation increase in labor force participation. Secondary analysis suggests that the effects are strongest among those likely to be most disadvantaged in the labor market.

中文翻译：

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留在游戏中：一项针对利比里亚弱势青年的运动和生活技能计划的随机对照试验

在过去的二十年里，体育项目作为一种让青年参与发展项目的模式激增。每年都有数以千计的组织、数百万的参与者和数亿美元投资于以体育为基础的发展计划。体育促进社会情感技能、改善心理健康和培养提高劳动力生产力的特征的基本信念为扩大体育促进发展 (SFD) 计划的资金和产品提供了动力。我们与一家国际非政府组织合作，随机分配 1200 名年轻人参加体育和生活技能发展计划。虽然我们没有看到改善心理社会结果或适应力的证据，但我们确实发现有证据表明该计划导致劳动力参与率增加了 0.12 个标准差。