• Jobs of the World
  • Mentoring Programme
  • Login for Grantees
  • Code of Conduct
  • About
    • History
    • Investigators
    • Team
  • Projects
    • GLM|LIC
      • Agricultural Labour Markets
      • Gender and Employment
      • Labour Markets in Low-Income Countries
      • Migration
      • Skill Training
    • G²LM|LIC
      • Fact & Policy
      • Fertility & Labour markets
      • Barriers to gender parity
      • The Future of Work
      • Policies & Welfare
    • COVID-19
  • Publications
    • Policy Briefs
    • Synthesis Papers
    • Working Papers
    • Published Articles
    • Book
    • Datasets
  • Events
  • For Policy Makers
Search
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
GLM|LIC Policy Brief No. 7

Labor Markets in East Africa

Labour Markets and Household Enterprises

We develop new tests for the completeness of rural labor markets, based on asymmetric responses in farm labor to changes in household composition. We implement our test using nationally representative panel data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. The overall pattern is one of excess labor in rural areas, with substantial heterogeneity by cultivation phase, gender, and agro-ecology. In Ethiopia, poor households face a de facto labor shortage, driven more by lack of finance than by a physical shortage of workers. There is evidence of partial gender segmentation. In all four countries, women are more difficult to replace than men.

GLM|LIC Policy Brief No. 7

Labor Markets in East Africa

  • Brian Dillon
  • Peter Brummund
  • Germano Mwabu
Download the PDF

sidebar

Subscribe to our mailing list
Contact us
Follow us on Bluesky
Follow us on X

Established in 1998 in Bonn, Germany, IZA is an independent, non-profit research institution supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation with a focus on the analysis of global labour markets. It operates an international network of about 1,500 economists and researchers spanning across more than 50 countries.

Based on academic excellence and an ambitious publication strategy, IZA serves as a place of communication between academic science and political practice.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) leads the UK's work to end extreme poverty. We're ending the need for aid by creating jobs, unlocking the potential of girls and women, and helping to save lives when humanitarian emergencies hit.

FCDO is a ministerial department, supported by 12 agencies and public bodies.

© 2012–2025 | IZA – Institute of Labor Economics | Code of Conduct | Imprint