Home-based work, defined as nonprofessionals who perform market work from their homes, is an increasingly recognized form of employment in Latin America. The majority of the research on this segment of the labor force relies on small sample, qualitative data, which find that home-based workers...

For years, South Korea presented the puzzling phenomenon of steeply rising sex ratios at birth despite rapid development, including in women's education and formal employment. This paper shows that son preference decreased in response to development, but its manifestation continued until the...

Using 2005 firm level data for 26 countries in Eastern and Central Europe, this paper estimates performance gaps between male and female-owned businesses, while controlling for location by industry and country. The findings show that female entrepreneurs have a significantly smaller scale of...

This paper quantifies the link between the timing of state-level implementations of political reservations for women in India with the role of women in India's manufacturing sector. While overall employment of women in manufacturing does not increase after the reforms, there is significant...

Despite the purported surge in internal migration following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, data from the 2006 European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions show that internal migrants are a relatively small share of the European Union's population. Depending on the exact...

This paper reviews empirical findings from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the impact of female education on a range of development outcomes, the paper presents...

This paper evaluates the impact of strengthening legal rights on the types of economic opportunities that are pursued. Ethiopia changed its family law, requiring both spouses'consent in the administration of marital property, removing the ability of a spouse to deny permission for the other to...

This paper provides a framework for analyzing the efficiency and equity of survivor benefit programs. These programs were originally designed to support families when the main wage-earner died, in an era where women rarely worked, fertility rates were high, and widows were unable to support...

This report provides an overview of the provision of social protection to refugees and asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This includes analyzing the legal framework and levels of implementation, as well as proposing policy directions on...

This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access...