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Firms

Improving Childcare Quality through Social Franchising

Access to high-quality childcare is central to advancing women’s economic and social agency while promoting children’s development. However, in many LMICs, childcare markets are largely informal, with care often provided in unregulated home-based settings. As a result, childcare is often of poor quality, while also being unprofitable and unaffordable. Mothers typically bear the burden of…

Assessing the Labour Market Impact of COVID-19 on Women with Young Children in Egypt

Women with young children are doubly challenged by the pandemic.  Disproportionately responsible for caregiving, yet faced with the loss of child care options in light of the pandemic and lockdowns, they will face particular difficulties in retaining or gaining work and may face increased stress and pressures within the household. These women are already the…

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…

Training, Financing, and Matching between Workers and Firms

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in income and employment generation in local economies, and SMEs account for a large share of businesses in low and income countries (LMICs). SMEs in LMICs are concentrated in activities that are described as unorganized or unregistered, or non-institutional. These SMEs have limited access to financial…

Assisting Job Search in Low-Employment Communities

Jobs are hard to find in Africa. Searching for jobs in African labour markets is expensive and time consuming. Job seekers, the young unemployed in particular, find it hard to be selected for the available positions. As a result, new employment opportunities are often not shared equally. Many economies in sub-Saharan Africa have achieved high…

Asymmetric Information on the Skills of Workers and Matching in the Labour Market

Youth unemployment is a serious issue in developing countries, where around 60% of young people are currently unemployed or underemployed [ILO 2013]. Understanding the determinants of youth employment in LICs is thus highly policy relevant, not just for policies related to labour market functioning and attachment, but also for those debates related to the incentives…

Are Labor Costs in Africa too High?

High labor costs appear to be a factor that undermines the creation of low-skill jobs in formal manufacturing firms at a large scale in several African countries. First, there exists a small number of formal manufacturing firms in Africa. These firms face higher labor costs than similar firms in numerous comparator countries, even after controlling…

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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.

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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.

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