South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population – especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: Economies of...

South Asia is in the midst of a demographic transition. For the next three decades, the growth of the region’s working age population will far outpace the growth of dependents. Close to one million individuals will enter the workforce every month. This large, economically active population can...

Governments around the world face ongoing pressures from citizens to provide more and better services, and to do this under a tight fiscal environment. This provides the context for government efforts to ensure their policies and programs are as effective, and as efficient, as possible. An...

The U-shape theory argues that at early stages of development, countries experience a reduction in the female labor force participation, eventually followed by a recovery. In Morocco, female labor force participation is now lower than it was two decades ago due to several factors that are...

COVID-19 is likely to have a large impact on the welfare of Tunisian households. First, some individuals might be more vulnerable to contracting the disease because their living conditions or jobs make them more susceptible to meeting others or practicing social distancing. Lack of adequate...

The unemployment and labor force participation gender gaps narrowed in Mexico after the 2008 global economic crisis, when female labor force participation increased. This paper aims to understand female labor force participation growth and identify its main determinants. For that purpose, the...

This paper identifies gaps in availability, access, and quality of household budget surveys in the Middle East and North Africa region used to measure monetary poverty and evaluates ways to fill these information gaps. Despite improving public access to household budget surveys, the availability...

This paper explores the link between the prevalence of violent conflicts and extremely low female labor force participation rates in South Asia. The Labor Force Surveys from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan are merged with the Global Terrorism Database to estimate the relationship...

Despite informality being the norm in conflict-affected countries, most estimates of the impact of conflict on economic activity rely on formal sector data. Using high-frequency data from Afghanistan, this paper assesses how surges in conflict intensity affect not only the formal sector, but...