Coverage: World Bank Development Impact Blog
(with Elisabetta Gentile, Nivedhitha Subramanian, Zunia Tirmazee and Kate Vyborny)
Conditionally Accepted at the Journal of Labor Economics
Abstract: Gender gaps in labor market outcomes persist in South Asia. An open question is whether supply or demand side constraints play a larger role. We investigate this using matched data from three sources in Lahore, Pakistan: representative samples of jobseekers and employers; administrative data from a job matching platform; and an incentivized binary choice experiment. Employers’ gender restrictions are a larger constraint on women’s job opportunities than supply-side decisions. This demand-side gap in quantity of job opportunities closes as education levels increase and jobs become more "white-collar".
Rural workfare programs in developing countries are well-studied, however, there is limited evidence on how such schemes function in urban settings. In this project, we study the roll-out of an urban workfare program in Tamil Nadu, India. As a pilot initiative built to combat urban underemployment, this program holds significant policy relevance in a context where little is known about job seasonality and which workers need these opportunities to fill employment gaps. We have completed data collection and plan to study three key dimensions: program implementation (measuring take-up rates and participation among eligible populations), program effects (analyzing impacts on employment, wages, and household welfare for participants), and specifically how the program affects women's labor force participation.
Under complete markets, households' simultaneous consumption and production decisions can be separated, with business choices being independent of household preferences and demographics. The existence of complete markets has been studied extensively, but almost exclusively in rural, agricultural households. I extend our knowledge of market completeness by studying firm-decision making in urban Brazil, where informal businesses are small and family-run. Using nationally representative data, I test a key prediction of the complete markets hypothesis: business labor demand should be unrelated to household demographic composition. By examining within-household variation in responses to business-specific shocks, preliminary evidence suggests that this prediction holds for high-asset households but is rejected for low-asset households. This research contributes to our understanding of how resource constraints affect enterprise survival and growth in developing countries, where informal businesses employ a substantial share of the workforce.
This project seeks to foster discussion and knowledge-sharing among a group of experts working on topics related to job platforms in the developing world. We interviewed platform practitioners and researchers to learn about their work with patforms, and any gender-related differences in outcomes that may have emerged. We presented early findings at a virtual workshop in April 2024 (slides available upon request). We are currently working on a report which will summarize key findings, and provide recommendations to improve women’s engagement with platforms.