Prolonged production shutdowns due to COVID-19 are severing ties between employers and workers. In Myanmar’s garments sector, as of early April, tens of thousands of workers have already been laid off, with many more facing risks of job loss. Further, some firms appear to be acting opportunistically to fire union members. These types of manufacturing…
Getting workers back to good matches: Wage Vouchers in the Wake of COVID-19
Migration, Changing Residence Patterns, and Covid-19in 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…
Meet Your Future: Job Search Effort and Aspirations of Young Jobseekers
The study is looking for add-on funding for descriptive data collection around COVID-19 using two samples from an existing ongoing project called “Meet You Future: Job Search Effort and Aspirations of Young Jobseekers”. The main study –jointly funded by a JPAL initiative and an IDRC grant -investigates the relevant barriers to quality employment that young…
Characterizing urban labor market effects of COVID and speeding recovery through a job search platform
The COVID-19 crisis has triggered unemployment worldwide. In developing countries, the effects are expected to be large (Mubarak and Howell 2020; Saleh and Cash 2020; Dingel and Neiman 2020); however, better data is needed to understand (1) who is most affected; (2) which job losses are expected to be temporary versus permanent, and (3) how…
The Impact of COVID19 Pandemic on the Small Firms in Developing Countries
COVID19 has paralysed the world over the last few months. To limit the spread of the disease, many countries adopted lockdown and social distancing measures. While these measures are seen as vital in containing the disease, they have also precipitated an unprecedented economic crisis. The crisis is hitting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) harder on…
Working Together or Never: Women’s Labor Supply Externalities and the Unemployment Trap
When social networks generate redistributive pressures, labor supply decisions are undertaken in a social context. Individuals who optimize labor supply do so with the understanding that some of their earnings may be subject to taxation within the network; if they are capable of avoiding this tax by not working, then labor supply will be distorted…
The Impact of Subsidized Access to Nurseries and Employment Services on Mothers’ Labor 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…
Seasonal Migration to Alleviate Seasonal Poverty: A Randomized Social Experiment in Myanmar
Much of the world is heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture. As a result, the rural economy is highly seasonal. In some areas during the lean season, work opportunities become scant, wages decline, and food prices rise, leading to seasonal deprivation. Seasonal labor migration is one of the coping strategies households use to smooth against this…
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…
Can Temporary Financial Incentives for Female Industrial Workers Lead to Long-Term Retention and a Better Allocation of Talent?
In this project, the research team study whether worker turnover contributes to the misallocation of talent in low-income countries. To this end, they will experimentally evaluate the impacts of offering financial incentives for worker retention in the context of a female-dominated occupation in the nascent garment manufacturing industry in Ethiopia. Our main hypothesis is that…