Individual-level employment data have a wide range of applications. They are used to monitor labor markets and the Sustainable Development Goals, contribute to understanding and explaining socioeconomic conditions, and may help to design and inform labor market policies.
... See More + This paper is relevant for academics and policy makers who want to understand the main survey design issues behind the collection of individual-level employment data in nationally representative household surveys and the implications for data quality, particularly for women and young people. The paper reviews four survey programs (Living Standards Measurement Study, Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, Labor Force Surveys, and Demographic and Health Surveys) in 14 developing countries. First, the paper reviews the Sustainable Development Goals to identify a core set of labor market indicators and briefly discusses the International Labour Organization's definitions of key concepts that shape these indicators. Second, it assesses whether the Sustainable Development Goals labor market indicators are captured in the reviewed surveys. Third, it takes stock of current approaches to collect employment data and discusses critical survey design features, such as the structure of the labor module and the wording of the questions. Fourth, the paper examines whether these survey design features are gender and age neutral. Data from the Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture are used to illustrate these issues. The paper concludes by proposing short- and medium-term objectives to improve the data quality in the Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8882 JUN 11, 2019
Promoting women-run enterprises is increasingly being recognized as one of the important interventions to advance women’s economic empowerment.
... See More + Women-run enterprises put women in the center of the market; which is a traditionally a male domain. However, for women to be able to run strong, viable and sustainable enterprises, policy support, credit access, training and market linkage are required. The Kudumbashree project demonstrates what it takes to promote, and take to scale, women’s enterprises.
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Using an event-study framework, this paper examines the impact of four minimum wage hikes between 2008 and 2015 on the Cambodian labor market. The analysis finds that, except for immediate adjustments around the time of the hikes, the minimum wage hikes did not affect participation rates in the affected sector -- garments and footwear -- or the unaffected sectors.
... See More + However, the minimum wage hikes increased wages modestly (3 percent) for workers in the affected sectors and modestly decreased wages (1.5 percent) for workers in the unaffected sectors. The gains for the affected sectors are slightly larger at higher quantiles than at lower quantiles. This is suggestive of a change in compensation structure within the affected firms as a result of the hikes.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8839 MAY 02, 2019
Rural economies are in transition around the world; in many countries, improved technology and linkages across sectors have expanded access to markets and accelerated production for some farmers.
... See More + At the same time, rural areas globally are facing a growing base of landless and smallholder farmers, out-migration to urban areas, and persistence of low-skilled, informal, and seasonal jobs where women are often heavily concentrated. Recent global initiatives are examining programs that can effectively raise rural incomes, including how addressing shortfalls in wome's hours worked and earnings can raise rural productivity and growth. But well-designed policies to address these issues require improved counting of individuals' employment, accounting for the complexity of measuring rural women's labor force participation, as well as data on social, economic, and institutional constraints that women face in seeking better economic opportunities. Using recent rounds of the Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda Living Standards and Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, as well as findings from recent country pilots conducted by the International Labour Organization, this paper discusses best practices and issues to consider when examining rural women's employment in socioeconomic surveys, as well as a survey research agenda to improve measurement.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8840 MAY 02, 2019
This paper investigates the relative importance of different channels in explaining the low share of industrial employment in Latin America relative to the economies that employ a large share of the workforce in industry.
... See More + Differences in domestic final consumption shares play a pivotal role and can account for 50-70 percent of the industrial share gap. The paper finds limited support for the comparative advantage hypothesis, as differences in trading patterns account for less than 15 percent of the gap. More important are the differences in sectoral linkages and wage gaps which account for more than 30 percent of the industrial employment gap individually.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8791 MAR 25, 2019
Following a couple of decades of offshoring, the fear today is of reshoring. Using administrative data on Mexican exports by municipality, sector and destination from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates how local labor markets in Mexico that are more exposed to automation in the U.S. through trade fared in exports and employment outcomes.
... See More + The results show that an increase of one robot per thousand workers in the U.S. -- about twice the increase observed between 2004-2014 -- lowers growth in exports per worker from Mexico to the U.S. by 6.7 percent. Higher exposure to U.S. automation did not affect wage employment, nor manufacturing wage employment overall. Yet, the latter is the result of two counteracting forces. Exposure to U.S. automation reduced manufacturing wage employment in areas where occupations were initially more susceptible to being automated; but exposure increased manufacturing wage employment in other areas. Finally, the analysis also finds negative impacts of exposure to local automation on local labor market outcomes.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8741 FEB 14, 2019
