Book
Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book examines the links...
Working Paper
Mining’s contribution to low- and middle-income economies
In several low- and middle-income countries with important extractive sectors, gross national income has developed favourably. Africa has benefitted most, particularly West Africa. This survey provides an up-to-date statistical analysis of the...
Working Paper
The resettlement of Vietnamese refugees across Canada over three decades
Welcoming 60,000 Southeast Asian refugees in the 1979–80 period has become a celebrated part of Canada’s history, but the eventual integration of these refugees into Canadian society has received insufficient attention. This study provides a...
Working Paper
Employer characteristics and youth employment outcomes in the formal sector in South Africa
Through the use of administrative tax data, this study attempts to identify the characteristics of firms that employ relatively large numbers of young people. The policy objective of this exercise is to use these insights to inform policy and...
Working Paper
Individual-level employment transitions in rural Vietnam
Structural transformation in rural areas is a key issue in economic development. While much of the literature on structural transformation has so far focussed on household- or commune levels or even higher aggregate levels, little is known about the...
Working Paper
Identifying monetary policy rules in South Africa with inflation expectations and unemployment
This paper investigates whether a Taylor rule accurately describes the South African Reserve Bank’s reaction function in setting interest rates using quarterly data, covering the period since inflation targeting was formally adopted in 2000. The...
Working Paper
Gender inequality in employment in Mozambique
We investigate the trend in the gender employment gap in the expanding non-subsistence sector of the economy in Mozambique, a country still characterized by a large subsistence agricultural sector. We show evidence that the gender gap has widened...
Journal Article
The gendered crisis
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This article studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in Delhi, India. First, the study finds that men’s employment...
Journal Article
The labour market impact of COVID-19 lockdowns
In this study, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home...
Working Paper
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment
This paper provides a comparative summary of recent national statistics from five Latin American countries on employment losses and gains during the peak COVID-19 years compared with pre-pandemic levels. As part of its work on the impact of the...
Working Paper
Physical proximity and occupational employment change by gender during the COVID-19 pandemic
Previous economic downturns such as the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis disproportionately affected male employment due to greater contractions in industries typically filled by men (e.g., manufacturing). However, after the imposition of the ‘hard’...
Working Paper
Employment transitions with high unemployment and a small informal sector
This paper examines employment transitions in the South African labour market. Using the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series, it analyses flows between the formal sector, informal sector, and unemployment, paying specific attention to how these flows...
Working Paper
Minimum wages and changing wage inequality in India
Using nationally representative data on employment and earnings, this paper documents a fall in wage inequality in India over the last two decades. It then examines the role played by increasing minimum wages for the lowest skilled workers in India...
Working Paper
Determinants of gender gaps in youth employment in urban Mozambique
In this study, we explore the correlates of the employment gender gap among urban youth in Mozambique. Young people are confronted with simultaneous decisions about education, work and family life influenced by social norms around gender roles. Using...
Journal Article
Educational expansion and shifting private returns to education
We examine how returns to education have evolved in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and economic growth in Mozambique over the period 1996–2015. We show that private rates of return to education have declined at lower levels of schooling...
Working Paper
Employer power and employment in developing countries
The issue of employer power is underemphasized in the development literature. The default model is usually one of competitive labour markets. This assumption matters for analysis and policy prescription. There is growing evidence that the competitive...
Working Paper
A policy for the jobless youth in South Africa
This paper uses survey and tax administrative data to analyse the effects of a sizeable employer-borne payroll tax credit for young, low-wage workers in South Africa. We find limited impact of the wage subsidy on employment of young, low-wage workers...
Working Paper
Top earners and earnings inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic
This paper aims to assess the extent to which top earners in Ecuador were affected by the COVID-19 crisis compared to other segments of the population.Our analysis uses administrative data for individuals affiliated to social security between January...
Blog
The COVID-19 crisis, informal workers, and gender — understanding the intersections
by
Martha Chen
March 2022
The COVID-19 crisis — the pandemic, restrictions, and recession — has not been a grand leveler. While all of us, rich and poor, faced the fear and...
Blog
Is vocational education the fast track to employment in Mozambique?
by
Anna Schnupp
May 2020
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is often put forward as the solution to youth unemployment — but to prove its worth, better...
Report
Baseline survey on the school-to-work transition of technical and vocational education graduates in Mozambique
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...
Report
Inquérito de base à transição ensino-emprego dos graduados do ensino técnico-profissional em Moçambique
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...
Working Paper
The relationship between transport accessibility and employment duration
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...
Working Paper
Earnings in the South African Revenue Service IRP5 data
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...
Journal Article
Does connectivity reduce gender gaps in off-farm employment?
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...
Working Paper
Trade liberalization, employment, and gender in Ethiopia
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...
Working Paper
Inequality and structural transformation in the changing nature of work
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...
Working Paper
The economic gains of closing the employment gender gap
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...
Working Paper
Employment effects of joining global production networks
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...
Working Paper
The gendered crisis: livelihoods and mental well-being in India during COVID-19
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...
Blog
Ghana's lockdown hit vulnerable workers hard: What needs to happen next time
by
Kunal Sen, Michael Danquah, Robert Darko Osei, Simone Schotte
March 2021
Coronavirus lockdowns brought the world to a standstill. Rules on hygiene and social distancing have reshaped daily life, schools and businesses had...
Working Paper
Firms’ resilience to financial constraints
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...
Blog
Adding insult to injury – the impacts of COVID-19 on urban youth in Mozambique
by
Eva-Maria Egger, Ivan Manhique,
Finn Tarp
April 2021
The negative economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique range from reduced social interaction to business closures, job losses...
Working Paper
Firm and product survival analysis
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)...
Working Paper
Who benefits from job training programmes?
Using admission lotteries and registry data linking labour market outcomes, we study the effect of a vocational training programme focused on disadvantaged individuals in Brazil. The intensive programme is an 18-month classroom training coupled with...
Policy Brief
The economic gains of reducing the employment gender gap in Morocco
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...
Working Paper
Estimating employment responses to South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive
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...
Technical Note
Discrete choice modelling of labour supply and informal employment using ECUAMOD
This technical note presents one of the modelling approaches used in Jara and Rattenhuber (2022) to estimate formal employment elasticities, namely the estimation of a discrete choice model of labour supply with informal employment. The approach...
Report
Survey on the school-to-work transition of technical and vocational training graduates in Mozambique
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...
Report
Inquérito à transição ensino-emprego dos finalistas do ensino técnico-profissional em Moçambique
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...
Research Brief
Is technical and vocational education and training a solution for youth unemployment?
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...
Research Brief
Será o Ensino Técnico-Profissional (ETP) uma solução para o desemprego jovem?
O Ensino Técnico-Profissional (ETP) é frequentemente visto como uma solução milagrosa que resolve questões que vão desde o desemprego juvenil até à mudança estrutural relacionada com o mercado de trabalho. Isto é particularmente verdade para os...
Working Paper
The effects of minimum wage hikes on employment and wages in Vietmam’s micro, small, and medium enterprises
Very little is known about the extent to which wage and employment offsetting behaviours change by firm size to mitigate the detrimental effects of minimum wage regulation. Do micro establishments react more aggressively to minimum wage shocks...
Blog
Gender pay gaps on the rise in South Africa
by
Michelle Pleace, Matthew Clance, Nicky Nicholls
January 2024
New analysis of income data in South Africa shows the gender pay gap—how much more men earn than women—has increased. According to findings from a...
Working Paper
The dynamics of formal employment during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on formal sector employment in Uganda. Utilizing employee-level administrative tax data from the Uganda Revenue Authority, we describe the dynamics of employment as the pandemic evolved, seeking...
Working Paper
Social norms as a barrier to women’s employment in developing countries
This paper discusses cultural barriers to women’s participation and success in the labor market in developing countries. I begin by describing how gender norms influence the relationship between economic development and female employment, as well as...
Working Paper
Offshoring within South African manufacturing firms
In South Africa, the manufacturing sector—important for growth and employment creation—has shown declining growth, poor productivity performance, decreased labour demand, and increased imports of intermediate goods (offshoring activities). Offshoring...
Working Paper
Firm-level employment growth in South Africa
This paper investigates the effect of innovation on employment growth at the firm level in South Africa. Innovation is typically associated with better export performance at the firm level due to productivity enhancements and new products. However...
Working Paper
The evolution of private returns to education during post-conflict transformation
This paper estimates how private returns to education have evolved in the context of postconflict transformation in Mozambique. This has been characterized by rapid economic growth, significant expansion of the schooling system, but also limited...
Working Paper
Self-employment and labour market dynamics of men and women in El Salvador and Nicaragua
We study the labour market dynamics of men and women in El Salvador and Nicaragua, focusing on the factors that help men and women move into an advantageous labour market state from an unfavourable state. We consider ‘advantageous’ states to be...
Working Paper
Occupational choice of skilled workers in the presence of a large development sector
Using data from Sierra Leone, I explore the role of cognitive ability in sorting across sectors and the importance of perceptions in the employment decision-making process. Crucial to the analysis is the introduction of the aid-industry/development...
Working Paper
Are routine jobs moving south?
The decline of employment in middle-wage, routine task intensive jobs has been well documented for the USA. Increased offshoring towards lower-income countries such as Mexico has been proposed as a potential driver of this decline. Our analysis...
Blog
How a data revolution in South Africa can help address gender inequality
In 2016, we joined a project in South Africa working to make tax data available for research purposes. Tax authorities collect an enormous amount of...
Report
Baseline Survey on the School-to-Work Transitions of University Graduates in Mozambique
The survey on the School-to-Work Transitions of University Graduates in Mozambique aims to respond to the concerns of the Government of Mozambique and development partners with respect to youth employment in the country. The focus is on the...
Policy Brief
Employment expectations of university students in Mozambique
Before now, there has been no systematic study of the transition of university students as they finish their studies and enter the labour market. This Policy Brief summarises the findings of a baseline survey of such university students, who form the...
Working Paper
Employment and development in Asia
How have economic development, employment, and labour markets in Asian countries interacted since the publication of Myrdal’s Asian Drama? Myrdal rejected, the western approach to and definition of employment and emphasized the role of ‘informal’...