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…
Leveraging Community-Based Childcare to Address Gender Gaps in Labour Market and Educational Outcomes Across Multiple Generations in Ethiopia
Information Frictions and Gender Inequality in Online Labour Markets
Information asymmetry on the part of job seekers or applicants and employers may lead to skills mismatches that increase gender inequality in labour markets. Can online labour markets close gender gaps in employment by smoothing information frictions? And to what extent does providing more information to both applicants and firms lead to improved matching and…
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…
Is Heading Home a Dead End? COVID-Induced Migration and Local Labour Market Opportunities in Rural India
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…
Assessing the Impact of the Shock on the Most Vulnerable
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a particular challenge for low-income and fragile countries, as well as vulnerable groups, particularly women. Our Sudan Labor Market Panel Survey (SLMPS) 2020 project, with planned data collection starting in August/September 2020, has benefited from support from the GLM | LIC project. The study proposes additional data collection and research on…
The Effects of Employer Responses to COVID-19 on Female Garment Workers in Bangladesh
Export manufacturing in low-income countries has been devastated by COVID-19. For instance, 46% of garment factories in Bangladesh report that “a lot” to “most” of their orders have been cancelled (Anner 2020), leading to mass demonstrations by workers who had not been paid for 3 months (Daily Star; April 17, 2020). Female workers are likely…
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…
Tracking the Value of Time of Informal Sector Workers during and Post-Curfew in Nairobi, Kenya
Covid-19 is already having widespread consequences in Nairobi, Kenya including the loss of earnings and starvation. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is considerable heterogeneity. For example, vendors who can still sell essential goods have been less impacted, while some others have completely lost their earnings. Women have fared disproportionately worse, with higher incidences of job…
Resilience and Recovery: The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the Informal Sector in Uganda
The number of COVID-19 cases in Africa is exponentially increasing and WHO experts fear not only many fatalities but also devastating social and economic consequences. African governments have responded to the pandemic by strict shutdowns of public life and, thereby, economic activities. The pandemic therefore not only imposes a global health threat, but it poses…