Employment opportunities are increasingly recognized as one of the main transmission channels between growth and poverty reduction. This is not surprising since the poor derive most of their income from work, either as self-employed or as employees, so that the impact of growth on their employment opportunities seems tautologically relevant for poverty reduction. In particular the extent to which growth affects poverty depends on its impact on the average return to labor returns and on employment levels but also on how these are distributed among the poor and the non-poor.
However, the extent to which growth increases the labor income of the poor depends crucially on (i) the structure of employment, (ii) the average returns to labor and their distribution and (iii) the existence of imperfections and frictions in the labor markets. For example, high labor markets flexibility and low barriers to mobility across labor market segments, geographic regions or sectors of production improve the extent to which the poor benefit from the opportunities generated by growth. Moreover, the relative importances of these factors, the extent to which they interact and the way they operate vary significantly across different countries and the causes of this variation remain for the most unexplained. Similarly the understanding of the factors that weaken the links between growth, employment/income generation and poverty reduction, and of the policy levers that can help to strengthen it, remains somewhat lacking. The Employment and Shared Growth program is designed to help in bridging this gap in knowledge and understanding using a combination of knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination activities. The main objective of the program is to support policy makers in the design and implementation of effective employment-focused development strategies and in monitoring the impact of these strategies on the welfare of the poor. This website provides an important element of the knowledge management component of the program and a vehicle for dissemination of new knowledge. It provides an introduction to the necessary tools to better analyze the link between growth, employment and poverty reduction, to the available data and to the major sources of information on the subject. The website is organized around four major sections: Employment Growth and Poverty Reduction explores the links between growth, quality of employment and poverty reduction. In particular, it analyzes the role of employment generation, income from employment, and labor markets in making growth pro-poor. Informality and Labor Market Segmentation is an issue of growing significance in the developing world. Most of the poor derive all of their income, or a great part of it, from informal work. Moreover, informal employment is often characterized by poor working conditions, poor pay and the absence of any labor standards for workers. Improving the economic position of informal workers is therefore a key instrument to raise living conditions of poor workers and reduce poverty. The labor market is central in determining individual and household wellbeing in developing countries. Therefore, an understanding of earnings and employment dynamics is a key policy issue. Firms and Job Creation analyzes how firms can create more and better jobs and turn productivity gains into investments and expansion. Skills Levels analyzes the role of education and human capital for economic growth and labor market performance. There is increasing recognition of the importance of human capital on both the level and growth of labor productivity. Therefore, skills and skills development are often essential policy considerations for those concerned with employment opportunities and the quality of jobs. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us. Back to Employment and Shared Growth |
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