This paper presents new evidence on the employment effects of a large increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa using anonymized tax data. We add to the minimum wage literature by differentiating employment effects resulting from the...
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is often put forward as the solution to youth unemployment — but to prove its worth, better...
The research detailed herein was planned and implemented by researchers at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the Develop-ment Economics Research Group (DERG) at the University of Copenhagen...
A investigação aqui apresentada foi planeada e implementada por pesquisadores do United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), do Grupo de Pesquisa em Economia do Desenvolvimento (DERG) da Universidade de...
The purpose of this research is to investigate whether transport accessibility influences the employment duration of individuals in South Africa. The South African Revenue Service’s IRP5 administration datasets, which indicate employment duration and...
The IRP5 and IT3(a) tax data from the South African Revenue Service have been made available to researchers through a joint project between the South African Revenue Service, the National Treasury, and UNU-WIDER. In this paper, I explain how to use...
The success of an economy’s manufacturing sector is often critical to economic growth and development. As a major contributor to exports, site of innovation, adopter of international best practices, and engine of job creation, an internationally...
Gender gaps in labor force participation in developing countries persist despite income growth or structural change. We assess this persistence across economic geographies within countries, focusing on youth employment in off-farm wage jobs. We...
This paper analyses the impact of trade liberalization on local labour markets in Ethiopia, with a focus on the gender dimension of employment. By exploiting rich micro-level data on Ethiopian workers, we evaluate the effect of the Ethiopian trade...
This paper analyses the labour market dynamics in Indonesia from 2001 to 2015 and explores the role of the changing nature of occupational employment in explaining the rising earnings inequality during the same period. First, we find evidence of a...
The present paper sheds new light on the growth implications of gender inequalities in the Moroccan labour market. We confront two different approaches. The first one is based on firm data to estimate gender complementarity in production and uses...
This survey is a collaborative project conducted by researchers of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of...
Is the emphasis placed in trade and industry policy-making in developing countries on the share of domestic value-added (‘value-added ratio’) in exports consistent with the objective of achieving economic development through an export-oriented...
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in India. First, we find that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points post-pandemic relative...
Gender gaps in labour force participation in developing countries persist despite income growth or structural change. We assess this persistence across economic geographies within countries, focusing on youth employment in off-farm wage jobs. We...
This paper examines the income inequality implications of a ‘premature deindustrialization’ trend in middle-income countries. To identify the premature deindustrialization phase, we arrive at five conditions based on the trends in employment and...
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, including Morocco, currently record the lowest rates of female labour force participation (FLFP) in the world. These rates — between 20-30% in 2019 — appear substantially low in comparison to Western...
We present new evidence on the effects of South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive (ETI), a hiring and employment wage subsidy aimed at reducing youth unemployment. We show that attempts to estimate firm-level treatment effects via conditional...
Coronavirus lockdowns brought the world to a standstill. Rules on hygiene and social distancing have reshaped daily life, schools and businesses had...
We study the role of trade credit in enhancing the resilience of financially constrained firms from 2010 to 2017. Implicit borrowing in trade finance allows financially constrained firms to bridge the financing gap, expand employment by 8.26 per cent...
The negative economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique range from reduced social interaction to business closures, job losses...
Enterprise development, especially expansion into export markets, is essential to create employment and unlock growth potential in many economies, including in sub-Saharan Africa. However, both firm and product survival (mainly in the export market)...
This study evaluates the effects of the informal sector on Nigerian workers’ livelihoods and analyses workers’ transitions within the informal sector and between informal and formal employment. A binary logit model is applied to General Household...
Youths in the Middle East and North Africa face the highest unemployment rates in the world. Those who are employed are pushed to accept informal sector jobs that are insecure, unsafe, and lack non-wage benefits. Precarious employment is pervasive...
According to South Africa’s National Development Plan Vision 2030, serious action needs to be taken to reduce poverty and encourage economic growth. One of the main challenges involves reducing the unemployment rates in South Africa, particularly...
In this paper, we provide causal evidence of the impact of stringent lockdown policies on labour market outcomes at both the extensive and intensive margins, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict...
This note introduces the GGDC/UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database (ETD), which provides time series of employment and real and nominal value added by 12 sectors in 51 countries for the period 1990–2018. The ETD includes 20 Asian, 9 Latin...
This study examines the skills-differentiated impact of a restrictive female labour migration policy in Sri Lanka using monthly departure data from 2012 to 2018 in a difference-in-difference model. The policy has resulted in decreasing departures...
This report documents the main conclusions of the Survey on the School-to-Work Transition of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Graduates in Mozambique. The research was planned and implemented by researchers from the United Nations...
Este relatório documenta as principais conclusões do Inquérito à Transiçãoo Ensino-Emprego dos Finalistas do Ensino Técnico-Profissional em Moçambique. A pesquisa foi planificada e implementada por pesquisadores do United Nations University World...
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is often seen as a silver bullet resolving issues ranging from youth unemployment to labour market-related structural change. This is particularly true for developing countries with deficient...
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