Botswana's welfare state is both a parsimonious laggard in comparison with some other middle-income countries in Africa (such as Mauritius and South Africa) and extensive (in comparison with its low-income neighbours to the north and east). Coverage is broad but cash transfers are modest. This...

Over the past two decades, many Latin American countries have expanded the economic protection of older adults by developing non-contributory pensions or making eligibility rules more flexible. These policies have addressed long-standing coverage gaps in Latin American pension systems and...

The provision of a universal old age pension is increasingly recognized as an important instrument for strengthening and extending social protection. A growing number of emerging economies, including East African countries, are introducing universal old age pensions to guarantee at least a basic...

This paper investigates the impact of social transfer programmes on school enrolment and child labour in Malawi utilizing a micro-simulation evaluation method. Four hypothetical cash transfer programmes, differentiated in terms of their conditions on children's enrolment and gender, are...

With the aim of reducing women's greater unpaid care work than men&'s and increasing women's paid employment, this paper examines the extent to which World Bank investments address unpaid care work. The paper conducts an in-depth gender analysis of 36 World Bank employment-related projects in...

This paper investigates the impact of income and non-income shocks on child labour using a model in which the household maximizes utility from consumption as well as human capital development of the child. Two types of shocks are considered: agricultural shocks as an income shock and the death...

This paper investigates whether cyclical variation in women's labour supply in Africa contributes to smoothing household consumption. We find little support for this hypothesis. Using comparable individual data on about 0.5 million women in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries merged with country...

Volatility in commodity markets poses an acute risk to farmers in developing countries who rely on cash crop agriculture. We combine a time series of international coffee prices with a long-running panel on coffee-growing households in Viet Nam to investigate coping mechanisms employed by...

Is maternal employment beneficial or harmful for child development? Maternal employment generates income, which is needed to provide core inputs for children's health and education. However, maternal employment comes at the cost of time spent with children, which is also a critical input into...

Myanmar has, in recent years, strengthened its focus on human capital as a development pillar, and introduced legislation and adopted conventions on child labour. But child exploitation continues, including use of forced labour by the military and children performing hazardous work. Moreover,...