This report analyzes the impact of the global economic crisis on the labor market and poverty in Croatia, and discusses the effectiveness of social safety net policies in response to the crisis. It ...also presents options to enhance the cost-effectiveness of social policy in Croatia in response to an economic downturn. It argues that the impact of the crisis on employment and poverty was substantial, but the policy response was limited. There is substantial room to enhance the efficiency of the social protection system in Croatia within the existing resource envelope, and build resilience against potential future economic shocks. The report is divided into five sections. Section one provides a backdrop for further analysis by presenting recent macroeconomic developments. Section two looks at the labor market effects of the crisis. Section three examines the impact of the crisis on poverty. Section four assesses the effectiveness of employment and social safety net programs in Croatia. The final section suggests options to enhance the effectiveness of employment and social safety net policies in responding to economic fluctuations.
This brief expands the scarce literature on the impact of the global financial crisis on labor market outcomesand welfare in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The brief focuses on ...the economy of St.Lucia, one of the OECS member states. The statistical information assembled here should help decision makersand the public in the OECS to develop policy options that can sustain job creation and thereby enhance publicwelfare. It also can help gauge the effectiveness of policies over time.The evidence presented in this brief shows how the recent financial crisis had significant and long-lasting negativeimpacts on the welfare of St. Lucians. The government of St. Lucia attempted to use fiscal policy to boostgrowth and enhance labor market opportunities in the island. Still, unemployed and underemployed St. Lucianstogether accounted for over 40 percent of the working-age employable population. They suffered a significantdecline in welfare in the aftermath of the crisis. They lost not only their income but also the collateral benefitsthat are often associated with being fully employed in good quality jobs in the “formal” sector of the economy.
This paper presents a broad overview of labor market indicators for men and women in Serbia with a focus on employment patterns, entrepreneurship and career advancement as well as earnings ...differentials. The analysis relies primarily on the results of the Labor Force Surveys conducted in Serbia in April 2008 and October 2009. The findings show that although the overall labor market situation in Serbia is difficult, women are in a much more disadvantageous position than men. Women are much less likely to be employed, start a business or advance in the political arena. Furthermore, there is a significant wage gap between men and women in a number of sectors and occupational groups with low educated women being particularly disadvantaged. The results of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition demonstrate that the wage gap is indicative of discrimination of women in the labor market as earnings differentials cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics of male and female employees. Based on the obtained results, the paper outlines four broad areas that require the attention of policy-makers: employment generation; enhancement of education outcomes; improvement of the regulatory environment and support to women's business and political careers; and promotion of transparent performance setting mechanisms.
Relying on census data collected in 2002 and historical weather data for Uganda, this paper estimates the impact of weather-induced internal migration on the probability for non-migrants living in ...the destination regions to be employed. Consistent with the prediction of a simple theoretical model, the results reveal a larger negative impact than the one documented for developed countries. They further show that this negative impact is significantly stronger in Ugandan regions with lower road density and therefore less conducive to capital mobility: a 10 percentage points increase in the net in-migration rate in these areas decreases the probability of being employed of non-migrants by more than 10 percentage points.
East Asia and the Pacific is a particularly diverse region. It includes some of the largest and most populated countries in the world such as China and Indonesia as well as small Pacific islands. ...Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in undertaking reforms to strengthen social protection systems in the region, not only as crisis response tools. The primary objective of this study is to provide a comparative review of the financing, structure and performance of social protection programs in the East Asia region. The region is very diverse and this study seeks to enhance understanding of regional expenditure patterns in social protection, and to provide insights in the performance of social assistance programs in particular. Regional studies of this kind are challenging for a number of reasons, and this particular study was no exception. The performance of social assistance programs will be measured in terms of coverage, targeting accuracy, generosity of the benefit levels and impacts on poverty and inequality. The report uses data from household surveys to assess the performance of social assistance programs. There are, however, some important data related caveats to keep in mind when interpreting the results.
This paper examines the effectiveness of a variety of policy interventions that have been tried in developing and transition economies with the goal of improving women's employability and quality of ...work. The programs include active labor market programs, education and training programs, programs that facilitate work (such as childcare subsidies, parental leave programs and land titling programs), microfinance programs, entrepreneurship and leadership programs, and conditional cash transfer programs. Some of these policy interventions were undertaken to increase employment, some to increase female employment, and some for other reasons. All of these programs have been subjected to impact evaluations of different kinds and some also to rigorous cost-benefit analyses. Many were found to be effective in increasing women's quantity of work as measured by increased rates of labor market participation and number of hours worked. In some cases, the programs also increased women's quality of work, for example, by increasing the capacity for women to work in the formal rather than the informal sector where wages are higher and where women are more likely to have access to health, retirement, and other benefits.
This paper uses 16 waves of panel data from the British Household Panel Survey to evaluate the role of subjective well-being in determining labor market transitions. It confirms a previous finding in ...the literature: individuals report a fall in their happiness when they lose a job, but they report a smaller fall when they are surrounded by unemployed peers, an effect called the "social norm". The main results of interest are that job search effort and unemployment duration are affected by the utility differential between having a job and being unemployed. Since this differential is also affected by the social norm, it implies that when unemployment increases, the unemployed are happier and they reduce their search effort. These results indicate that unemployment hysteresis has labor supply causes.
In the last 25 years, Cape Verde has made impressive progress in their historical transition from a centrally planned to market economy. Building the institutional foundations of a market economy, ...this small nation of islands located off the coast of West Africa has developed a vibrant private sector and opened to international trade. This has ignited economic growth, which in turn has brought about higher incomes and reduced poverty. Currently, Cape Verde has a well-functioning market economy and as a result graduated from the ranks of the low income countries to one of middle-income status. Such a successful transition, achieved over a short period of time, exceeded many observers' expectations. In any economy, the issue of high and persistent unemployment centers on the dynamics of net job creation linked to firm entry and firm expansion. The issue of disparities in labor market outcomes centers on the tendencies of reallocation of jobs and workers away from less productive regions, sectors and firms toward more productive economic activities. This study finds that in both fronts-net job creation and reallocation, there is reason for optimism. Job creation is substantially above job destruction. With respect to divergent labor market outcomes across islands, there is a trend towards convergence indicating that a national and integrated job market is emerging. Furthermore, as expected, these two developments are highly interlinked; emigration from areas and sectors characterized by relatively lower job growth and immigration into regions and sectors with relatively higher job growth is taking place. The study also offers preliminary findings about the effects of a public sector wage premium on labor market outcomes and, separately, there are indicative findings on factors that may be affecting the decision of workers to enter and stay in the informal sector or enter into formal employment.
Analysis in this policy note indicates a rapid deterioration in employment opportunities for young individuals transitioning from school to work in Egypt. Despite substantial improvements in labor ...market outcomes in recent years (in raising employment and participation and in lowering unemployment), unemployment rates in Egypt remain exceedingly high among youth entering the labor market for the first time. A slow school-to-work transition remains the main reason behind high unemployment rates. Young entrants to the labor market have become more educated than ever before: the share of the working-age-population with university education in Egypt has increased significantly between the years 1998 and 2006 (from 14% to 19% among men and from 9% to 14% among women). However, youth are unable to capitalize the time and resources invested in their education as the labor market is not providing enough good-quality jobs for them. To cope with scarce formal jobs, young-educated workers are opting to work in the informal sector and/or withdraw from the labor force, which is contributing to a deadweight loss of recent investments in education. There are three key factors that seem to explain why school-to-job transition remains low in Egypt: investments in the private sector remain low and capital intensive, new graduates are not equipped with the skills demanded by the private sector, and the public sector still provides incentives for educated individuals (mainly women) to queue for private sector jobs. There are several policy options used in the international context to further enhance the performance of the labor market; such as enhancing employability of new entrants, reforming the technical and vocational training system, and designing targeted programs aiming to boost labor demand.
Sri Lanka has been regarded as a model of a country with successful social policies, yet for decades it has faced major challenges in providing employment and satisfying other aspirations of youth. ...Although the labor force has become more educated, and this trend is particularly marked for youth, the main source of employment for both youth and adults remains the informal sector. Moreover, the importance of the informal sector as a source of employment has increased since the mid-1990s. On the positive side, unemployment declined in last decades, particularly for youth. The Sri Lankan government has continually acted on various fronts to address the youth unemployment problem. It has tried to improve and modernize Sri Lanka's general education system, which has long been criticized as too academic, and to increase the accessibility of training so as to promote the employability youth leaving school. Other actions included strengthening entrepreneurship programs and introducing career guidance and counseling and improving labor market information to help young people in their job searches and to guide human resource planning. In 2007, the government developed the National Action Plan for youth employment, built, for the first time, on a coherent youth employment policy framework and deriving an encompassing and consistent set of policy recommendations. The plan was based on in-depth analysis of Sri Lanka's labor market, provided via a series of background papers undertaken under the auspices of the Youth Employment Network (YEN). To provide the richness and comprehensiveness of this analysis in its totality, these papers, updated and revised, are collected in the present book. This book offers a wealth of valuable advice to the government and other stakeholders to achieve this goal. By exploiting the full potential of the youth, not only will their talent, aspirations, and energy be harnessed to advance economic growth, but also the existing inequities will be reduced and, hopefully in the longer run, eliminated.
