Designing Social Interventions to Improve Newcomer Adjustment: Insights from the Indian Sex Worker Community

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations use social interventions to improve the negative circumstances of marginalized people in subsistence markets. Unfortunately, such intervention efforts are frequently characterized by poor outcomes. Aiming to identify characteristics of effective social interventions, the authors examine the impact of contact intensity and cohort size, in conjunction with external and internal peer influence, on the newcomer adjustment (i.e., socialization) of marginalized people in subsistence markets to social interventions. The authors test the framework using data from members of the sex worker community in India who completed a vocational training program intended to improve their employability outside the sex trade. The findings indicate that the effects of social intervention characteristics, contact intensity, and cohort size on newcomer adjustment to the intervention are positively and negatively affected by the influence of external and internal peers; newcomer adjustment, in turn, influences employment outcomes. The authors conclude with a discussion of the importance of considering social intervention characteristics and social-related factors to help marginalized people in subsistence markets adjust to the interventions' proposed behavioral changes.

Keywords: social marketing, social intervention, newcomer adjustment, subsistence markets, peer influence, socialization