Financial Daily News : Factory Jobs vs. Cash Grants in Ethiopia: Five Years Later

Jun 27, 2019

Factory Jobs vs. Cash Grants in Ethiopia: Five Years Later

IPA Random Update
LATEST RESEARCH & NEWS

NEW RESULTS

Factory Jobs vs. Cash Grants in Ethiopia: Five Years Later

Researchers: Christopher Blattman, Stefan Dercon, Simon Franklin

Industrial development is often seen as an important strategy for reducing un- and underemployment in low-income countries. But how do those jobs affect workers? To what extent do workers prefer these jobs over other options, like self-employment? In Ethiopia, researchers randomly assigned mostly female jobseekers to receive an industrial job offer or an unconditional cash transfer, meant to spur self-employment. While they found positive impacts of the cash transfers on occupational choice, income, and health in the first year, these effects largely dissipated after five years, suggesting one-time interventions may be insufficient for overcoming barriers to wage- or self-employment.

Read the full summary here and the full working paper here.

FEATURED ARTICLE

Can Banks Play a Role in Improving Resilience to Climate Change?

By Dean Karlan, Rebecca Rouse, and Laura Burke

The world’s neediest people are particularly vulnerable to unexpected crises, which come in many forms, from catastrophic conflicts to calamitous cyclones. The financial-service provider can throw a lifeline in the form of financial products that make the difference between sinking or swimming. This article, published in International Banker magazine, covers practical ways banks can help vulnerable people living through the most challenging circumstances.

Read the full article here.

USING RESULTS

Evidence-Informed Social Protection Programming in the Philippines

Researchers: Eric Edmonds and Caroline Theoharides

Around the world, 152 million children are engaged in child labor. Policymakers have aimed to reduce child labor by addressing what is considered to be its root cause: poverty. An IPA research team partnered with the Philippines Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to rigorously evaluate the impact of a social protection program, which provided households with a productive asset and business training, on child labor and household economic outcomes. Eighteen months after the program started, households offered the program had better food security and improvements in some measures of child welfare, but the program also led to a modest increase in the number of children who worked. In response to the findings, DOLE decided to make improvements to their program.

Read the full impact case study here.