Suchergebnisse

Concerns about the welfare of working children has over time produced a wide range of international and national interventions in the child labor market, culminating most recently in a commitment to eradicate the worst forms of child work via the attainment of target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals. While the literature on the causes and consequences of child labor is voluminous and well established, research that explores the political economy of such interventions is disproportionately scanter. This chapter puts the relatively less prolific literature on the political economy of child labor under conceptual and empirical scrutiny. It starts by looking briefly into the theoretical case for interventions into the child labor market and then verifies whether such interventions are justified in practice. It then presents two types of political economy explanations of potential mismatches between economic theory and practice, one in the domain of international interventions and a second one in the realm of national policy making.

AbstractUsing a representative sample of medium and large firms, this paper explores the process of employment and wage bill determination in the Bulgarian manufacturing sector. The results suggest that, during 1997–2001, the labour market behaviour of these firms was consistent with weakly efficient contracting and employment elasticity with respect to both sales and wages similar to that of the fastest‐reforming Central and Eastern Europe economies. Although a case study using data on sell‐off deals by the Privatization Agency suggests that the largest firms selected for cash privatization may have exhibited higher preference for wage enhancement than employment protection, the results do not bring into question the efficient performance of the post‐crisis labour market in Bulgaria. Importantly, the study rejects the hypothesis that either persistent government stakes or mass privatization may have led to efficiency deterioration.

Abstract
There is evidence from some low-income countries that women's empowerment is associated with better child health and education outcomes, suggesting that mothers value these outcomes more than fathers do, on average. We hypothesise that this difference will be smaller in matrilineal societies, and using a Ghanaian household survey that includes data on children's education, we find evidence consistent with this distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures. Women's empowerment is higher, on average, in matrilineal households, but this does not explain why their mean educational expenditure is higher, because empowerment in matrilineal households has no significant effect on expenditure. One possible explanation for these findings is cross-cultural heterogeneity in parental preferences: in the matrilineal society, women are more empowered, on average, and more money is spent on children's education, but the first difference is not the cause of the second.

AbstractThe Middle East and North Africa (MENA) labour market is emblematic of widespread youth unemployment and high discouragement rates, experiencing disproportionately high levels of unemployment among educated young people. Using ILO School‐to‐Work Transition Surveys for Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, the authors explore whether this is related to inequality of opportunity or to deeper structural characteristics that create a mismatch between skill demand and supply on the labour market. The low availability of high‐skilled jobs and the low value placed on skills gained through the system of vocational training are found to have high explanatory power.

ResumenEl mercado de trabajo de Oriente Medio y África del Norte se caracteriza por un desempleo juvenil generalizado y desproporcionadamente alto entre los jóvenes con estudios. Con datos de las encuestas de la OIT sobre la transición de la escuela al trabajo en Egipto, Jordania y Túnez, los autores examinan si esto está relacionado con la desigualdad de oportunidades o con un desajuste estructural entre la demanda y la oferta de competencias laborales. Se constata que la escasa disponibilidad de puestos de trabajo altamente calificados y el escaso valor otorgado a las competencias adquiridas mediante el sistema de formación profesional tienen un gran poder explicativo.

RésuméLe marché du travail du Moyen‐Orient et de l'Afrique du Nord se caractérise par un chômage des jeunes généralisé et par un nombre disproportionné de chômeurs parmi les nouveaux diplômés. À partir des enquětes du BIT sur le passage de l'école à la vie active menées en Égypte, Jordanie et Tunisie, les auteurs regardent si cela tient à l'inégalité des chances ou à des caractéristiques structurelles induisant des discordances entre offre et demande de travail. Les principales explications seraient le faible nombre d'emplois qualifiés disponibles et le peu de valeur accordée aux qualifications acquises dans le système de formation professionnelle.

Using 2008 LSMS data for Côte d'Ivoire, we study the welfare implications of the price increase of key imported staple food-rice-and consider the consumption smoothing effect of locally produced food and cash crop varieties. While middle income urban households are adversely affected by rising rice prices, relatively poor rural households benefit. Availability of local staple alternatives leads to further income redistribution from net consumers toward net producers of staples. By contrast, the ability to generate income from tropical cash crops not only improves the welfare of rural households, but helps smooth the consumption of urban households. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.