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…
Gender
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…
Taming Counterfeits Markets with Consumer Information
Access to quality inputs is critical to boosting agricultural productivity. However, quantitative research (Tjernström et al 2017; Bold et al 2017; Ashour et al 2019) and news reports (Muchiri 2019; Okinda 2019) find that the quality of agricultural inputs—such as seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides–is often low in rural African markets. The inability of buyers to…
Remittances and Coping with COVID‐19
The study seeks to support the Philippine COVID‐19 response by quantifying the role of international migrant remittances in helping households cope with the pandemic’s economic consequences. Remittances are known to provide important support for migrant‐origin households experiencing negative shocks. Little is known about whether migrants who are themselves experiencing negative shocks are able to provide…
Gender Effects of COVID-19: Evidence from the Kenya Life Panel Survey
Governments in many countries are implementing social distancing measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, yet there is limited evidence about the effectiveness of these measures in low-income contexts. This is particularly true of travel restrictions/lockdowns; this, plus school closures, are likely to have major labor market implications, and potentially differential effects by gender. The…
Gender Differences in the Effects of the ‘Great Lockdown’on Time Use
This research will address whether and how the coronavirus pandemic exacerbates barriers to gender parity in developing countries by asymmetrically affecting time use for men and women. The effects of COVID-19 are likely to differ by gender (Alon et al., 2020), but the nature and extent of those differences are uncertain. The study, therefore, proposes…
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…
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…