![](/sites/default/files/styles/image_slider_1920x380/public/Events/Banner/banner-absreacr-microZAMOD-tanakawho.png?itok=LnO96EOu)
Blog
From The Editor's Desk (October 2012)![Placeholder](https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/expert_45x45/public/tony_addison_87363af4b3de300e5211e81b8d521d70.png?itok=-MPVkzbW)
Tony Addison UNU-WIDER is having a very active and successful autumn. Our climate change and development policy conference at the end of September...
Tony Addison UNU-WIDER is having a very active and successful autumn. Our climate change and development policy conference at the end of September...
Tony Addison Mid-September finds UNU-WIDER very busy preparing for our big conference on climate change and development policy that takes place later...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva [1] The concept of social class and specifically middle class, has been widely discussed in sociology and other social...
M.G. Quibria In the wake of the worst famine of Bangladesh of the post-World War era Professor Muhammad Yunus launched a microcredit experiment in...
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Carl-Gustav Lindén The research project ReCom-Research and Communication on foreign aid, which is co-ordinated by UNU-WIDER with funding from the...
This paper provides a historical overview of the South African trade union movement, followed by a brief discussion of the labour market legislation and institutions formed since 1994. Thereafter, a detailed evaluation of the impact of trade unions...
This study examines the relationship between growth and employment in Nigeria to gain insights into the country's paradox of high economic growth alongside rising poverty and inequality. The methodology adopted is the Shapley decomposition approach...
This paper documents and analyses the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labour rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and...
This paper looks to uncover the growth traps and opportunities for the South African economy, with a focus on underlying labour market dynamics. We explore the potential of South Africa’s demographic dividend. We also consider the structure of the...
This paper studies individual-level labour market transitions and their determinants in South Africa during the zenith and aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis using 2008 to 2010-2011 panel data from the National Income Dynamics...
This paper investigates if changes in the minimum wage have influenced changes on the formality and informality rates, and the level of wages in Ecuador. A 12-year panel was built. It allows to overcome the short time span of household data and so to...
This paper examines the changing nature of occupational labour-market trends in South Africa and the resulting impact on wages. We observe high levels of demand for skilled labour that have intensified a trend already established before 1994. Over...
Prior to the 1970s, the "problems of women", in the societies where their rights were recognized, were defined and dealt with by various movements and political groups in the context of moderating or eliminating legal and customary forms of...
The rapid diffusion of computers has widely changed the consequences of computer use on the labour market. While at the beginning of the eighties knowledge of computers was an obvious advantage in a career, this same knowledge is now so commonplace...
Ethiopia has experienced rapid economic growth since 2005. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average rate of 10.5 per cent per annum for the period between 2004–05 and 2013–14. Public investment in key infrastructure and interventions in...
The objective of the paper is to understand the transforming relationship between the formal and informal sector in a liberalizing open developing economy. There are various facets in this relationship, and we focus on three essential aspects. First...
The Nordic model relies on high tax rates to finance an extensive welfare state. If labour supply elasticities are large, the burden of financing the model can be large even if, arguably, the practice of providing subsidised goods that support labour...
Understanding industry agglomeration and its driving forces is critical for the formulation of industrial policy in developing countries. Crucial to this process is the definition and measurement of agglomeration. We construct a new coagglomeration...
Much of the vast literature on changes in income distribution in advanced countries during the last two decades attributes these either to globalization (specifically in the form of trade liberalization with low-wage developing countries), or to...
The economic reform policies in the 1980s and the 1990s under the so-called Washington Consensus have recently led to growing concern for inequality. This paper looks at some of the labour market outcomes of the economic reform policies in terms of...
The dispersion of racial incomes in South Africa has been declining since the mid 1970s. This has been accompanied by rising within-group inequality, especially amongst blacks, driven by growing unemployment. Consequently, there has been little...
In estimating the prevalence of undernourishment in a region or country it has been common practice to choose a benchmark - or, as some would say, a critical limit - which reflects nutrition requirements and then to calculate the percentage of the...
In this paper we provide an analytical account of the mechanisms through which globalization, in the sense of increased foreign trade and long-term capital flows, affects the lives of the rural poor in developing countries (in their capacity as...
One of the most notable phenomena during economic transition is the shrinkage of the public sector and expansion of the not working population, simultaneously with the expansion of both the formal and informal private sectors. We address the related...
The first democratic elections in 1994 brought about the promise for equal opportunity and an overall improvement of living standards for the majority of the South African population. However, 20 years after the democratization of South Africa...
We investigate the evolution of wage levels, wage inequality, and wage determinants among urban residents in China using China Household Income Project data from 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013. Average wage grew impressively between each pair of...
The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of the inefficient functioning of the Tunisian labour market. The study takes advantage of the recent development in the stochastic frontier techniques and estimates, the matching function for...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.As an upper middle-income country within Africa, South Africa often attracts specific interest in terms of its economic growth and development dynamics. Often under-appreciated, is the...
Macroeconomic strategies and policies have differed significantly among Asian countries over the last fifty years, and yet some common issues recur despite their immense diversity in inherited historical initial conditions, differences in political...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Baseline Survey on the School-to-Work Transitions of University Graduates in Mozambique will be launched on 4 September. This baseline survey is part...
Part of Journal Special Issue Women’s Work
Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates...
This paper examines how trade sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unexpected and unprecedented trade sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012. We use a difference-in-differences...
Wage subsidies have served as a primary labour market policy used around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, where unemployment is among the highest globally, the Temporary Employer–Employee Relief...
How does centralized bargaining affect the broader wage structure? And what does this tell us about the (non-)competitive dynamics of such labour markets? I study large contracted wage increases negotiated by centralized bargaining councils in South...
The volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from several disciplines to advance research practice on social mobility. Three sets of motivations guide this joint effort...
Despite a sizeable literature on the labour market effects of maternity leave regulations on women in developed countries, how these policies affect women’s work in developing countries with a large informal sector remains poorly understood. This...
During the 2000s, El Salvador experienced slow economic growth for Latin American standards. The country underwent a recession during the international crisis of 2008, but returned to pre-recession output level in 2011. Changes in labour market...
During the 2000s Honduras grew less than the average Latin American country and labour market indicators moved, in general, in a worsening direction. The only exceptions were the reduction in the unemployment rate and the improvements in the mix of...
During the 2000s Mexico grew less than the average for Latin America. Labour market indicators exhibited mixed changes, with improvements over the period for some of them and deterioration for others. The country was severely hurt by the...
Between 2000 and 2012, Panama boasted the strongest economic growth in Latin America. The growth experience was not uniform: the 2000–02 period was marked by slow or negative growth rates, after which growth was exceptionally rapid. Although the...
During the 2000s Paraguay experienced slow economic growth but improved all labour market indicators. The growth process was erratic. Paraguay underwent a macroeconomic crisis at the beginning of the period, a recession as a consequence of the...
The paper attempts to examine the extent to which the ILO-supported projects have contributed to women’s economic empowerment and well-being i.e., from a gender perspective. The paper provides the ILO’s perspectives on gender dimensions of employment...
The Peruvian economy performed exceptionally well between 2000 and 2012, with a growth performance that placed the country well above the regional average and an improvement in all labour market indicators. The economy suffered a slowdown as a...
The Uruguayan story was one of declines in the early years of the 2000s in most indicators, followed by improvements in all of them. Economic growth was negative in the early years due to a severe economic crisis, positive and rapid thereafter except...
Venezuela experienced slow economic growth during the 2000s. The economy suffered a recession in the early years of the period and during the international crisis of 2008, but most labour market indicators improved and moved along with the business...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
UNU-WIDER had a busy September. We celebrated our 30th birthday with some 600 people at our three-day conference on ‘Mapping the Future of Development...
Argentina experienced a decline in the early years of the 2000s, from 2000 to 2002, in GDP and in most labour market indicators, followed by improvements in nearly all of them, tracing out a U-shaped pattern. The international crisis of 2008 impacted...
Revisiting foundational feminist work on the concept of empowerment from the 1980s and 1990s, this paper draws on the findings of a multi-country research programme, ‘Pathways of Women’s Empowerment’, to explore pathways of positive change in women’s...
During the 2000s Bolivia experienced moderate economic growth and improved all labour market indicators. The economy suffered a slowdown as a consequence of the international crisis of 2008, but Bolivia sustained positive growth rates during that...
During the 2000s, Brazil experienced slow economic growth and a substantial improvement in labour market indicators. From 2001 to 2012, Brazil grew less than the Latin American average. However, the unemployment rate decreased, the employment...
During the 2000s Chile achieved rapid economic growth and improved most labour market indicators: the unemployment rate fell; the mix of employment by occupational position and sector improved; the educational level of the employed population, the...
Between 2000 and 2013, Colombia experienced rapid economic growth. The country suffered a slowdown at the beginning of the period and during the international crisis of 2008, but during both slowdowns, the growth rate never turned negative. Most...
In the 2000s, Costa Rica experienced moderate economic growth and a general improvement in labour market conditions. From 2000 to 2012, Costa Rica grew at the Latin American average. Most labour market indicators improved during 2001–09 and 2010–12...
During the 2000s, the Dominican Republic experienced above-average economic growth along with mixed results in labour market indicators. GDP per capita stagnated through 2004 and, for the most part, grew rapidly from 2005 through 2012. Comparing 2000...
Ecuador experienced moderate economic growth during the 2000s. The economy suffered a mild recession during the international crisis of 2008, but returned to pre-recession GDP per capita level in 2010. Most labour market indicators improved over the...
This paper examines whether the presence of refugees alters the intra-household allocation of tasks across genders in the hosting population. Using panel data (pre- and post-refugee inflow) from Kagera, a rural region of Tanzania, we find that the...
Over the last half-century, the role of women in society has changed substantially. However, the gender income gap and the difference in labour force participation persist. Akerlof and Kranton introduce the concept of identity from sociology and...
Various development objectives are worthy, but to my mind, one objective dominates all others: reducing the scourge of absolute economic misery in the world. In this paper, I focus on an important but relatively underemphasized approach to poverty...
This paper describes the very different role played by female elites in contemporary developing countries, as compared to the 'early' industrializing countries of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It shows that women are far more important...
Indonesia went through a process of fiscal decentralization in 2001 involving the devolution of several policymaking and service delivery functions to the subnational tiers of government (provinces and districts). This process is likely to have...
This paper reassesses the gains from trade for sub-Saharan Africa, and draws their implications for labour market adjustment and poverty reduction. It reviews previous studies on multilateral liberalization, focusing on the findings from computable...
Employment has been adopted as a leading concern for the United Nations World Social Summit in March 1995. This important study, prepared for the Summit by the World Institute for Development Economics Research, comprises a wide-ranging set of...
On the 10th of April, 2012, the African Development Bank and UNU-WIDER organized a research workshop on the theme of ‘Employment in Tunisia: What Do We Know? What is the Way Forward?’. The aim of this workshop was to bring together universities and...