What is in Local Dialects? A Field Experiment on Social Distance and Human Capital Development in Job Training

This paper presents a field experiment at a large garment factory in China to investigate whether the reduced social distance between new sewing workers and their trainers affects the efficacy of on-the-job training. During the factory's new-worker training program, we randomly matched trainers and trainees based on whether they spoke the same dialects. We find that trainers voluntarily transfer more sewing techniques to trainees who speak the same dialects than to those who do not. This positive effect of shared dialects operates partially through non -work-related social closeness between trainers and trainees. Our results suggest that closer social distance could be cost-efficient leverage to reduce training costs and improve training outcomes.