An analysis of panel data on individuals in a random selection of urban households in Ethiopia reveals large, sustained, and unexplained earnings gaps between public and private, and formal and informal sectors over the period 1994-2004. The authors have no formal evidence whether these gaps...

The Ethiopian labor market is facing the dual challenge of creating new employment opportunities for the rapidly expanding labor force and improving the quality of existing jobs in the labor market. This paper estimates an earnings function for the urban wage-employed to understand how...

Women comprise 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa, but manage plots that are reportedly on average 20 to 30 percent less productive. As a source of income inequality and aggregate productivity loss, the country-specific magnitude and drivers of this gender gap are...

This study uncovers a gender labor productivity gap among informal firms in 14 developing economies. The results show that labor productivity is approximately 15.2 percent (or 0.165 log point) lower among women-owned than men-owned informal firms. Decomposition techniques reveal several factors...

Despite the efforts made to increase women's inclusion in the economy, they are still underrepresented in trade in general and in global value chains in particular. Thus, this paper aims at examining the impact of global value chains on women's trade participation as entrepreneurs and employees....

This paper addresses labor markets in Haiti, including farm and nonfarm employment and income generation. The analyses are based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole country and representative at the regional level. The findings suggest that four key...

Like many low-income countries, Timor-Leste faces challenges in providing employment for and increasing the skills of its labor force-challenges made more acute by high fertility rates, a very young population, and the capacity constraints of a new nation. However, there is limited information...

This paper studies gross worker flows to explain the rising informality in Brazilian metropolitan labor markets from 1983 to 2002. This period covers two economic cycles, several stabilization plans, a far-reaching trade liberalization, and changes in labor legislation through the Constitutional...

The author addresses the labor markets in rural and semi-urban Mexico. The empirical analyses show that non-farm income shares increase with overall consumption levels and, also, with time. Rural-dwellers in lower quintiles of the consumption distribution tend to earn a larger share of their...

The paper explores the properties of a modern urban model in which households' and firms’ locations in the city are endogenously determined as functions of technology, preferences, and geography. This class of model provides insights into the factors that determine the shape and growth of...