The household enterprise sector has a significant role in the Tanzanian economy. It employs a larger share of the urban labor force than wage employment, and is increasingly seen as an alternative to agriculture as a source of additional income for rural and urban households. The sector is...

This paper investigates the impact of remittances on financial inclusion. This is an important issue given recent studies showing that financial inclusion can have significant beneficial effects on households. Using household-level survey data for El Salvador, the authors examine the impact of...

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...

Human trafficking, as it is defined by international law, subsumes all forms of nonconsensual exploitation. That is, whenever people are forced or lured into exploitation no matter if movement of victims is involved it is considered human trafficking. There is, though, a large overlap with...

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...

The objective of this policy note is to assist the Chinese government in assessing implementation of the unemployment insurance (UI) program to date, identifying key challenges, and exploring possible policy responses. The note begins with a background section on recent developments in the...

There is a wide agreement on the fact that a large informal economy leaves many individuals without social protection and reduces government's tax revenue and social security contributions. However, it remains an open question what really drives informality, namely whether workers are simply...

In this paper the authors survey the World Bank poverty assessment literature to date on the relationship between disability and poverty.The authors find that using standard assumptions about the distribution of household consumption among household members and the typical way that poverty lines...

A number of trends are changing the nature of social risks and increase the importance of human capital, adaptability and flexibility. This paper discusses the usefulness of a life-course perspective in developing proactive social policies that better fit the changing life cycles of individuals...

This report gives an overview of the social security status of non-citizens in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), describes measures and efforts to support labor mobility through enhanced social security protection of non-citizens in SADC, and makes recommendations as to how to...