<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only led to a health crisis, but also to economic and labor market crises. In an effort to avert the public health threat, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) initially put in place some of the world's most stringent government responses. This paper explores how labor market outcomes for MENA workers have evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper uses the Economic Research Forum (ERF) COVID-19 MENA Monitor (CMM) phone surveys in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia, with waves spanning November 2020 to August 2021. Analyses examine outcomes of employment, unemployment, and labor force participation, along with hours of work and hourly wages. Results show differences in the evolution of pandemic-era labor markets by workers’ gender, age, and education, along with their February 2020 labor market status and industry, as well as their pre-pandemic income. Employment rates have largely recovered and hours of work generally increased. Inequality in wages was initially exacerbated by the pandemic, but there has been at least some recovery on this margin as well.
</abstract>

Department of Economics and Political Science

IRD and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University

Are labor markets in the Middle East and North Africa recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

During a global shock two forces act upon international remittances in opposite directions: income losses among migrants may reduce their ability to send remittances and, at the same time, migrants’ concern for their family's wellbeing may prompt them to send more remittances back home. Which of these drivers prevail is an empirical matter. We assemble quarterly data at the subnational level in Mexico to study the behavior of remittances during the Covid-19 pandemic. We estimate elasticities of remittances with respect to employment conditions at both origin and destination places of Mexican migrants. Our results show that destination country conditions have been the main driver of remittances to Mexico, whereas origin country conditions had no discernible effect on remittances during the pandemic. We also show that contractions in consumption in Mexico are associated with reductions in remittances. We conclude that risk-coping via remittances provides limited protection during global crises.
</abstract>

Migrant Remittances During a Global Shock: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mexico

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

India has enjoyed over twenty years of rapid economic growth. The benefits of this growth, however, have largely bypassed India's poor; around a quarter of the world's malnourished children reside in India, and their health poses a significant challenge for the Indian government. Although the growth in India's domestic economy did not result in many trickle-down benefits for the hungry poor, anecdotal evidence suggests that food security related indicators has benefited from another factor. Both rural or urban households have become increasingly reliant on remittances and used them to improve their food security. This paper explores the pattern of relationship between remittances and food consumption/diversity utilising data from the India Human Development Survey collected in 2005 and 2011–12. Using Heckman procedure and the instrumental variable approach to correct for selection and simultaneity bias, the paper finds that remittances increase total food expenditure (mainly the expenditure on protein-rich food such as meats, eggs, pulses, vegetables and fruits) as well as food diversity, measured using the Household Dietary Diversity Score, Shannon and Simpson Index. The results are robust to models’ specification and support the existing evidence that remittances represent a mechanism by which households improve their food security.
</abstract>

Lecturer in economics, School of Accounting, Finance and Economics

Senior Lecturer in economics, School of Accounting, Finance and Economics

Time to remit: the effect of remittances on household consumption and dietary diversity in India

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The benefits of formal training are numerous, and yet in many regions few firms utilize them. In this study, we build on the literature by exploring how two forms of human capital–the quality of management practices and the proportion of university educated employees - influence the adoption of formal training. Using both cross-sectional and panel firm-level data for 29 economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and 6 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economies, management practices of the firm are found to be positively correlated with the implementation of formal training in ECA but not in MENA. The proportion of university educated workers is positively correlated with formal training in both ECA and MENA, but the finding is more robust for the latter. The study explores potential explanations why management practices have no influence on formal training in MENA and related policy implications.
</abstract>

The human capital of firms and the formal training of workers

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The employment structure of India's formal manufacturing sector has undergone substantial changes since the early 2000s with a steep rise in the use of contract workers in place of directly hired workers. Much of the existing literature has attributed the widespread use of contract labour to India's rigid employment protection legislation. The resulting informalisation of the workforce in the organised sector raises concerns about the sustainability of employment growth. Using a 14-year plant-level panel data from the Annual Survey of Industries, we find that in addition to labour market rigidities and the existence of a wage differential between contract and directly hired workers, plants in the organised manufacturing sector have another important incentive to hire contract workers. Plants appear to be using contract workers to their strategic advantage against the directly hired workers to keep their bargaining power and wage demand in check. Importantly, the strength of this bargaining channel varies across plants depending on their capital intensity of production, size and existing contract worker intensity.
</abstract>

Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations

Informalization of the formal sector: Evidence from India's manufacturing industries

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

We study gender differences in changes in labor market dynamics before the pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic in four Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries: Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Specifically, we look at differences in labor market states and at differences in the transitions of workers across labor market states. To identify the pandemic's impact, we compare labor market stocks and labor market flows for a number of balanced panels of workers during the pandemic and before the pandemic. We find that the pandemic has negatively affected employment and labor market participation of both men and women, but that the effect is significantly stronger for women, magnifying the already large gender gaps observed in LAC countries. The main channel generating this stronger impact is the increase in child care work performed by women with school-age children.
</abstract>

University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, NC and IZA

The COVID-19 Pandemic in Latin American and Caribbean countries: Gender Differentials in Labor Market Dynamics

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

We contribute to the literature by exploring the variation in the trade-creating effect of migration networks across historical migrants and recent migrants by applying a micro-founded gravity model of trade. Both the stock of historical migrants and recent migrants variables are constructed by merging Canadian Census data with the migration data available in Statistics Canada. We address the endogeneity issue by applying IV estimators including two-step feasible GMM and PPML with IV and fixed effects by utilizing the imputed annual migration flow, the historical stock, and recent stock of migrants as instrumental variables proposed by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_izajodm-2023-0007_ref_054">Peri and Requena (2010)</xref>. Taking Canadian geographical features into account, this study also applies carefully measured gravity variables. We control for the time-varying, exporter-year fixed effects, and importer-year fixed effects in a panel estimation. Estimated results show that annual migration, recent provincial stock of migrants, and historical stock of migrants significantly increase Canadian interprovincial trade. This impact is stronger for the stock of historical migrants relative to the stock of recent migrants and annual migration flow. Sub-sample analysis shows that both recent and historical migration consistently increase interprovincial service trade, only but not interprovincial goods trade. A greater combination of English and French-speaking provinces-pair significantly increases interprovincial trade. Regional trade agreements significantly impact the interprovincial trade of Canada. Our estimated results are robust to different estimation methods and alternative measures for the migrants’ stock and flow variables.
</abstract>

Recent vs Historical Migrants: A Study on the Canadian Provincial Trade-Migration Nexus

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

Technology has changed the way we work, creating and destroying employment but especially modifying the occupational tasks we perform. This paper seeks to analyze the contribution of technology to changes in the distribution of wages in Uruguay and its differences between genders. We address this question from the task-based approach perspective. We use the recentered influence function regression decomposition method to analyze men and women wages and the gender wage gap over the period 2005–2015. Our estimates suggest that introducing occupational tasks linked to technology into the analysis contributes to explain changes in the wage distribution as well as in the gender wage gap. Contrary to the routinization hypothesis predictions we find that technology has an overall equalizing effect but, it pushes up the gender wage gap among private employees except at the very top of the wage distribution.
</abstract>

graciela.sanroman@cienciassociales.edu.uy

Technology, routinization and wage inequality: gender differences in the case of Uruguay

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 14 (2023): Issue 1 (January 2023)

Volume 13 (2022): Issue 1 (January 2022)

Volume 12 (2021): Issue 1 (January 2021)

Volume 11 (2020): Issue 1 (January 2020)

Volume 10 (2019): Issue 2 (August 2019) Migration and Those Left Behind

Volume 10 (2019): Issue 1 (June 2019)

IZA Journal of Development and Migration

Please note that the journal IZA Journal of Development and Migration has been discontinued and no longer accepts new submissions. Any third-party websites claiming the journal's continuity and accepting submissions are predatory and have no relation to the Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA - Institute of Labor Economics). Published volumes will remain fully accessible. In case of questions or concerns, please contact us at journals@iza.org. View our back issues (2012–March 2019) Welcome to the IZA Journal of Development and Migration. The IZA Journal of Development and Migration publishes academic articles in the closely related fields of development and migration economics. Economic development and migration are closely linked like the two sides of a coin. Understanding the drivers of emerging labor markets is essential to understanding the drivers of migration and vice versa. In particular, the IZA Journal of Development and Migration covers (i) all aspects of economic development related to issues of human behavior and/or the labor market of developing, emerging or transition countries, including both policy issues and more structural problems, and (ii) all issues related to the economics of migration and ethnicity in this context.  The IZA Journal of Development and Migration is part of IZA’s mission of contributing to social and economic discourse, enabling political decision-making to be based on the best available academic knowledge. We want to stimulate research to close knowledge gaps. Hence, the IZA Journal of Development and Migration particularly welcomes empirical and theoretical contributions that provide academically sound answers to open and relevant questions of development and migration policies.  Archive  The IZA Journal of Development and Migration has been founded in 2012. 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IZA Journal of Development and Migration operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers are not aware of the names and affiliations of the authors and the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous Publication of research articles by IZA Journal of Development and Migration is dependent primarily on their scientific validity and coherence as judged by our external expert editors and/or peer reviewers, who will also assess whether the writing is comprehensible and whether the work represents a useful contribution to the field.  Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two to three experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. Reviewers will also be asked to indicate how interesting and significant the research is. 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