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Large-scale evaluation study of the barriers to women’s labour force participation, and how they impact job seekers and employers in the labour market.
To help alleviate poverty and vulnerability by augmenting the skills-base of low income, poor and vulnerable families through vocational training.
To study how children’s development in early life is impacted by alternative forms of social protection programs.
To inform interventions that may help expand the market for private tutoring and improve its efficacy by building on a survey of 21 private markets for tutors (15,000 households).
The project studies the existing market structures that affect day laborer’s in Pakistan, focusing on easing search frictions and matching costs.
Principal Investigators:
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According to International Labour Organisation, unemployed, underemployed, and economically inactive people are growing in low-income countries. In South Asian cities, women are considerably less likely to participate in the economy, even at high levels of education. Our data suggests that a large number of women may be inactive or “latent job seekers” who are at the margin of participation and lack information about relevant job opportunities. In this study we use our job matching platform, Job Talash to examine how various labour market interventions can improve the job search process for both employers and job seekers. Job Talash is an in-house, phone based job matching platform set up by researchers at CERP and Duke University. The platform connects job seekers to relevant job opportunities, in case their qualifications match with the requirements of the vacancies. The platform currently has over 10,000 jobseekers and 1,200 employers enrolled through a representative sample. The interventions on the platform include:
We observe how these interventions impact job search outcomes such as application, interview and employment behaviour for both job seekers and employers. We particularly observe the impact on marginalized segments of the populations, such as women or inactive latent job seekers, who might lack access to relevant professional networks and internet services.
2014 – ongoing
DFID-IZA, NSF, J-PAL, IGC, ADB, DIV USAID, PEDL and IPA
Punjab Social Welfare Department, Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (previously partnership), Punjab Social Welfare Department (previously a partner)
Research Papers:
Report:
Briefs
Media coverages
Videos
Web Portal: Job Asaan
Gender, Labour Markets, Informational Interventions, Phone-based Survey, CATI, CAPI
Principal Investigators:
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Low-income countries are increasingly setting up welfare systems and providing economic opportunities for their citizens through cash transfer, employment generation, and skills enhancement programmes. Many of these policies are directed towards those who have been historically excluded from state programmes—the poor, rural inhabitants, and women. The success of such policies relies on these individuals being able to access the benefits provided to them. In practice, we often see “money left on the table” in that studies document how villagers do not obtain subsidised rice, widows fail to take advantage of monthly stipends, and women are unable to obtain vocational training, despite the large gains such programmes may have.
This project aims to help alleviate poverty and vulnerability by augmenting the skills-base of low income, poor and vulnerable families by improving their technical and vocational skills. The main goal is to increase the rate of income growth in poor and vulnerable households in high poverty districts of Southern Punjab – Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Lodhran, and Muzaffargarh.
This project uses experimental variation to estimate the value of one such access constraint—travel that requires a woman to move outside her community. We study a skills development programme in rural Pakistan, which is representative of many underdeveloped regions throughout the world where female mobility—a widely recognised barrier to development —is a challenge for both logistical and cultural reasons.
2012 – ongoing
Government of Punjab, Punjab Skills Development Fund (PSDF), DFID (FCDO), British Asian Trust, Kaarvan Crafts Foundation
Social Protection, Poverty, Employment, Economic Mobility, Female Empowerment, Rural Economy, Poverty Alleviation, Technical Skills, Vocational Skills, Welfare Systems, Travel, Female Mobility
Principal Investigators:
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The project will in particular use and build on an earlier randomised control trial intervention (part of CERP’s Asset Transfer project) targeted at the poorest households in rural Punjab, Pakistan. In 2014, households were randomly assigned to either receive asset transfers (typically in the form of livestock) or the equivalent unconditional cash transfer. In the subsequent eight years, both forms of social assistance are documented to have substantial impacts on the labour market activities, earnings and investments of treated households.
This project will investigate how each form of social assistance impacted children’s outcomes, for those born prior, during or just after the original intervention. A range of child outcomes will be studied, and measures of cognitive and non-cognitive development for children between the ages of 0-8 years. We will also collect information to identify the mechanisms generating child development outcomes, such as parental beliefs and attitudes. This data will be collected from a sample of ultra-poor households residing in the four Project Districts: Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Muzaffargarh and Lodhran.
Three different child development tools (the IDEALA tool for children aged 48 months – 7 years 11 months 30 days, Liz Spelke’s tasks for children aged 36 months – 7 years 11 months 30 days and a brief child development assessment for children aged 6-35 months 30 days) will be used along with a section on mother or primary caregiver’s physical and mental health to measure outcomes at different stages of child development.
The IDELA is an internationally validated tool which has already been used by multiple research teams in Pakistan (https://idela-network.org/about/). All tests are direct assessments except the CREDI which exclusively relies on mother or primary caregiver reports, and thus, primarily focuses on milestones and behaviours that are easy for mothers or primary caregivers to understand, observe, and describe. Interviewers will conduct the surveys with children in the respondents’ homes and the mothers/caregivers will be present at all times during the interview.
2020-Ongoing
3IE, Yale University
Early Childhood Development, Social Assistance, Social Protection, Poverty
Principal Investigators:
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Private tutoring offers a readily available means for addressing two issues in Pakistan. First, nationally-representative data shows that a large share of Pakistani children receive paid, private tutoring across the socio-economic spectrum, meaning the market for private tutors can be leveraged to address the critically low learning outcomes in Pakistan at scale. Second, the vast majority of private tutors are women with secondary degrees, providing a culturally-acceptable means of employment for a critically under-employed population. However, despite the wide-spread popularity of tutoring, we know virtually nothing about how markets for private tutoring operate. “Market for Tutors” project addresses this knowledge-gap by building on a survey of 21 private markets for tutors (15,000 households) we conducted in 2019. We are currently conducting follow-up surveys in these markets to better understand both the current state of the market and how the markets changed due to the disruption in education brought on by Covid-19. The lessons learned from these surveys will be used to inform interventions aimed at expanding the tutor market and improving its efficacy.
2019-Ongoing
J-Pal
Covid-19, Private-tutoring, Educational Outcomes
In South Asia, three quarters of ultra-poor households report casual labour as the dominant form of income. In urban areas, short-term construction jobs are found through social connections or by going to a “labour stand”, essentially an intersection where low-skilled labourers wait each morning for employers looking to hire for a day or two. While spot markets like this are generally thought of to be the free-market ideal, these markets appear to be rife with failures including information asymmetries, wage rigidity and large search costs for employees and employers. The presence of these frictions often increases dependence on social relationships.
This project seeks to answer why exactly employers hire workers from their social network, what are the mechanisms at play and, in response to variation in the hiring process, how do workers change their investment in social capital versus productivity?
These questions will be tested through an RCT with a construction firm in Pakistan. Different aspects of the hiring process between contractors and labourers will be varied while observing the resulting effect on hiring patterns by contractors, laborer productivity and labourer investment in their social capital.
2019 – Ongoing
International Growth Center (IGC)
Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL)
Covid-19, Private-tutoring, Educational Outcomes