A G²LM|LIC research project “Returns to Childcare and Capital: Experimental Evidence from Uganda” has released a new dataset aimed at understanding how access to childcare and capital affects the labor supply and business outcomes of women managing microenterprises in Uganda. The research focuses on whether providing childcare can help alleviate the constraints female entrepreneurs face due to family obligations, thus boosting their business productivity and household well-being. Find the dataset here.
Latest News
New Dataset Published!
A new dataset as part of G²LM|LIC research project “Can Temporary Financial Incentives for Female Industrial Workers Lead to Long-Term Retention and a Better Allocation of Talent?” conducted by the University of Oxford, explores the effects of worker turnover on the allocation of talent in low-income countries. Focusing on Ethiopia’s nascent garment manufacturing industry, the study examines whether financial incentives can improve the long-term retention of female workers, who dominate this sector. This dataset is crucial for understanding labor market dynamics in developing countries, where turnover rates are often higher and can negatively impact both workers and firms. Find the dataset here.
New Policy Brief Published!
A new policy brief titled “COVID-19 and Urban Households in Lahore, Pakistan” by Hamna Ahmed, Mahreen Mahmud, Farah Said, and Zunia Saif Tirmazee examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns on a group of women who recently graduated from public colleges in Lahore, Pakistan. Find the paper for download here.
A small selection of our Projects
Our newest publications
COVID-19 and Urban Households in Lahore, Pakistan
We analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown on a sample of women who completed their undergraduate degrees from public colleges in Lahore, Pakistan. We conducted
phone surveys with 1,617 women from May to June 2020 collecting information on their own and household outcomes. Pakistan imposed a strict lockdown in March 2020, following the first recorded death in the country in the same month. We survey the respondents, on average, 10 weeks after the lockdown was first implemented, when it was beginning to be eased. The country was implementing a policy of ‘smart lockdown’, imposing stricter safety and social distancing protocols in localized areas that were deemed to have high or rising infection rates. We interviewed women belonging to urban, middle class households in Lahore. Our sample is unique in that they are highly educated – all of the women in our sample are recent college graduates – when only about 10% of the women in urban areas of Pakistan have an undergraduate or higher degree (PSLM, 2015).
Meet Your Future: Experimental Evidence on the Labor Market Effects of Mentors
We designed and randomized a mentorship program among students undergoing school-to-work transitions in Uganda. The program improved participants’ career trajectories up to a year after graduation. Using call transcripts and survey data, we find that the mentorship acted by providing information about entry-level jobs and encouragement, rather than job referrals or search capital. Consistent with this finding, mentored students lowered their reservation wages, raised their expected returns to experience, and turned down fewer job offers. These results highlight the role of distorted beliefs in prolonging youth unemployment and point to a cost-effective and scalable solution.
Informality and Poverty Dynamics
In Nigeria, informality has been on a persistent rise with an increasing number of people engaging in informal employment. Similarly, the rate of poverty and extreme poverty in the country has also been on the rise, an occurrence more evident among the working poor. However, not much is known empirically about the dynamics of both informality and poverty within the Nigerian context. Using panel data from the four waves of the Nigeria General Household Survey (GHS), this study employs the random effects panel regression model to assess the poverty implications of mobility across informal employment types, while also exploring the dynamics of informality and poverty, respectively. The results of our analysis indicate that although work is important, the quality of the work is much more crucial for the welfare of those engaged. Specifically, we find that whereas, transition between all forms of employment is negatively associated with poverty, household heads who transition from formal to informal employment are 0.8 times less likely to move above the poverty line than those who remain in formal employment. Our findings also show that persistence in informality in the country is more evident among own-account workers.
The Impact of Trade Unions on Earnings: New Evidence from Cameroon
The role of trade unions in the Cameroonian labour market is still a little discussed topic, despite the end of trade union monolithism in 1995 and the emergence of collective agreements that have been genuinely negotiated between the social partners since 2000. Using only the second Survey on Employment and the Informal Sector (EESI) − due to the unavailability to the public of data from the third wave of this survey at the time of writing − conducted by the National Institute of Statistics in 2010, this paper assesses the influence of union presence and union membership on the monthly earnings of formal and informal sector employees, highlighting the specificities of the Cameroonian industrial relations system. The empirical results – which are mainly based on the Poisson pseudo- maximum likelihood estimator – show that the presence of a trade union and/or a staff representative in a workplace has a positive and significant influence on income, except in the public sector. When the analysis is restricted to workplaces where there is at least one union, the results reveal that union membership is not an explanatory factor for the average earnings gap between union and non-union employees in the informal and public sectors. In the formal private sector, however, union members are paid less than their non-union counterparts.
Barriers to Utilizing Antenatal Care and Skilled Birth Attendant Services: A Study of Rural Women of Reproductive Age in Three Villages in Khanewal District, Pakistan
Antenatal care (ANC) and skilled birth attendants (SBAs) play a crucial role in reducing maternal mortality. This study aimed to identify the barriers to the utilization of essential healthcare services like antenatal care and skilled birth attendants to rural women of reproductive age in District Khanewal, Pakistan. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews with Lady Health Workers, rural women of reproductive age, and household members. The participants were purposively selected. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted, with five interviews each for rural women of reproductive age, household members, and Lady Health Workers. The thematic analysis is conducted to identify the barriers. Rural women’s barriers to not using ANC and SBA services and preference for traditional birth attendants stem from their trust in them, adherence to traditional practices, lack of ANC knowledge, decision-making capacity, and distance to health facilities, all identified as the barriers to the utilization. It is necessary to implement community-based interventions in rural areas to enhance knowledge and awareness of ANC services. Targeted interventions should be made in rural areas to improve the coverage and accessibility of primary healthcare services. Rather than discouraging the primary health-seeking behavior of rural women, the study suggests engaging traditional birth attendants, providing them with training, and expanding ANC coverage for the time being by utilizing local traditional attendants.