The majority of the population in LICs depend on rain–fed agriculture for livelihoods, which means the timing of most activities is dependent on the rainfall calendar and pattern. This has obvious implications on the timing of other events that reduce labour or make it hard to carry out heavy agricultural workloads. One such event is…
Peripartum Timing, Agricultural Productivity, Food Security, and Child Health in Africa
Project
Female Wage Labour and Fertility
While growth has taken off in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in recent decades, the structural transformation of its economies is still lagging far behind that observed in other previously low-and-middle-income regions across the world. At the same time, SSA is undergoing a unique fertility transition: the decline in the number of children born per woman is…
Occupational Segregation and Gender Gaps in Nairobi
We study the interlinked role of beliefs, preferences, and search by workers and firms in driving occupational segregation and wage inequality for women in Nairobi, Kenya. Our project address four questions within this agenda: (1) (How) do employers treat women and men differently in the hiring process? (2) (How) do men’s and women’s preferences over…
Women’s Employment and Family Decisions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Our project studies the role of the public sector and the opportunities it can provide for women’s employment and the gender pay gap in low-income countries (LICs). Using the preliminary evidence from microdata for a number of SSA countries, we show that the public sector in poor economies behaves very differently from private firms: it…
Leveraging Community-Based Childcare to Address Gender Gaps in Labour Market and Educational Outcomes Across Multiple Generations in Ethiopia
The project, to be conducted jointly by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) and Policy Studies Institute (PSI), aims to answer the following questions by evaluating a randomized trial of community-based childcare and early learning facilities as part of Ethiopia’s flagship Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP): What is the impact of providing affordable childcare to…
Long-Run Impacts of Factory Jobs: Labour Market Outcomes, Wellbeing, and Fertility in Ethiopia
In recent years, Ethiopia has become a hub for textile and garment manufacturing. These factories provide employment opportunities in low-skilled jobs, drawing many young women into the formal labour force. Although the factories create formal jobs in a labour market characterized by a lack of wage employment opportunities, an important question remains whether low-skilled factory…
Long-Term Labour Market Impacts of Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment Interventions in Bangladesh
In this study, we conduct a long-term follow-up of an empowerment programme (which raised labour force participation prior to marriage) and an anti-child marriage programme. We (a) investigate how exogenously changing adolescent girls’ (i) empowerment, (ii) marriage age, and/or (iii) education in rural Bangladesh affects their labour market outcomes over the long term (15 years…
Leveraging “Big Data” to Improve Labour 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…
Returns to Childcare and Capital: Experimental Evidence from Uganda
Microenterprises are an important source of employment, and developing such enterprises is a key policy concern in most countries, especially in low-income countries where they employ more than half of the labor force. While there is optimism about the power of finance for small-scale business development, a growing literature shows that success cannot be taken…
The Impact of Subsidized Access to Nurseries and Employment Services on Mothers’ Labour Market Outcomes and Child Development in Egypt
There are three main explanations as to why female labor force participation, globally, remains low: (1) women’s high opportunity cost of time (2) weak labor demand and (3) restrictive gender norms. The research team will test aspects of all three constraints on FLFP in a low-income context in Egypt. They will specifically answer the following…