On March 24 2020, the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19. Implemented with just four hours’ notice, the lockdown forced millions of suddenly out-of-work migrants to return to their villages –often by foot over long distances. How can migrant-sending states support labor market opportunities for migrants without compromising COVID…
Is Heading Home a Dead End? COVID-Induced Migration and Local Labor Market Opportunities in Rural India
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Leveraging “Big Data” to Improve Labor Market Outcomes
Rapidly expanding Internet access has dramatically changed job seeking across the developing world. This surge in access has occurred alongside a private sector-led expansion of online job portals providing search and matching services Despite these technological gains, labor market challenges often abound in lower-‐income countries, with high overall unemployment and often low or stagnant female…
What Can Online Vacancies Tell Us About Labor Market Conditions in Lower-Income Countries? Evidence from India
Over the last decade, the rapid diffusion of internet technologies in lower-income countries has changed how employers and workers interact in the labor market. While the initial boom in online recruitment focused on higher-wage occupations, there now exist online search and matching services for lower-wage occupations, from domestic work to entry-level retail jobs. Harnessing these…
Migration, Changing Residence Patterns, and Covid-19 in India
Informal insurance through family members and temporary migration are among the most important ways that individuals in low-income countries mitigate economic shocks. Covid-19makes these traditional means of informal insurance socially costly. Temporary or permanent migrants respond to the negative economic shock of the pandemic by returning home to co-reside with family members and risk spreading…
A Tough Call: Understanding the Impact of Mobile Technology on Women’s Work, Gender Gaps, and Social Norms
As digital technology becomes an ever-growing part of economic life in low-income countries, researchers and policymakers face a moment of both opportunity and risk: technologies like smartphones and mobile internet could connect millions of marginalized women and girls to the modern economy, generating new opportunities for employment and human capital accumulation. However, there is a…
Empowering Women through Public Policy
In 2005, India’s Parliament passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a landmark in social protection legislation for the country. The Act moved employment into the domain of legally enforceable rights for a population no less than 120 million, making it the largest work/welfare programme in the world. Since 2009, the eponymous anti-poverty programme has…
The Urban Geography of Entrepreneurship and Growth in India
Rapid urbanisation is a major phenomenon in many developing countries. Cities are the engines of economic development; however, little is known about what determines the success of cities in developing countries, nor about the factors that shape the characteristics of rapid urbanisation. The historical literature on urban economics is rooted in the rise of the…
Wage Compression in Low Income Labour Markets
Do relative pay comparisons matter for worker behaviour? A long tradition in economic thought – as well as in psychology, sociology, and human resource management – has advanced the notion that individuals care about not only their own pay, but also their pay relative to that of their co-workers. When subjected to unequal pay, workers…