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This book examines the challenges African youth face in their transition to work and presents a strategy for meeting these challenges. It argues that African youth start working too early and are unprepared to meet the demands of the labor market. Leaving school early - or not entering at all - limits their human capital accumulation and restricts their upward mobility, with grave implications for both individuals and national economies. This book describes how Africa's young people spend their time and presents a case for investing in youth in Africa, analyzing the two paths to working life for Africa's youth: directly (without the benefit of education) and through school. It also presents new evidence on the effects of education on employment and income in selected countries, and examines youth unemployment and its determinants. The case studies conducted in selected African countries analyze policies and programs implemented on youth employment and suggest a policy framework to help African youth successfully transition to working life. Part one, 'Youth in Africa's labor market: a synthesis' by Marito Garcia and Jean Fares, contains the following chapters: Why is it important for Africa to invest in its youth?; Transitions to working life for Africa's youth; How do Africa's young people spend their time?; The effect of education on income and employment; Working in bad jobs or not working at all; The three pillars of policy: lessons from international experience. Part two, 'Youth in Africa's labor market: country case studies', contains the following chapters: School-to-work transitions: regional overview / Lorenzo Guarcello, Marco Manacorda, Furio Rosati, Jean Fares, Scott Lyon and Cristina Valdivia; What determines labor market participation by youth in Burkina Faso? / Daniel Parent; Child labor and youth employment in Ethiopia / Lorenzo Guarcello, Scott Lyon and Furio Rosati; Youth in the labor market and the transition from school to work in Tanzania / Florence Kondylis and Marco Manacorda; How did universal primary education affect returns to education and labor market participation in Uganda? / Lisa Dragoset and Lars Vilhuber.

Excerpt from published foreword with additional information reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Although the Philippines has achieved remarkable progress in raising the education level of its labor force, the standard proxy for educational attainment - years of formal schooling - is increasingly inadequate as a measure of workforce skills. About one-third of employers report being unable to fill vacancies because applicants lack requisite skills. Most of these missing skills are socioemotional skills, which are increasingly crucial to the types of jobs being created by the global economy. This book presents new evidence from employer and household surveys on the role of socioemotional skills in the Philippine labor market and reveals the following: (1) two-thirds of employers report difficulty in finding workers with adequate work ethics or appropriate interpersonal and communications skills; and firm-based training increasingly focuses on socioemotional skills; (2) the more educated and employed workers tend to score higher on measures of grit, decision making, agreeableness, and extraversion; and (3) socioemotional skills are associated with an increase in average daily earnings, in particular for women, young workers, less-educated workers, and those employed in the service sector.

Studies suggest that primary school is the optimal age for shaping socioemotional skills, but the Philippines' elementary education curriculum devotes limited resources to their development. Schools are judged solely by students' performance in cognitive achievement tests, but not on soft-skills competencies, and teachers are not appropriately trained to foster the development of them. Interventions that target workers entering the labor force can also effectively bolster their socioemotional skills, complementing efforts to improve labor-market information and vocational counseling.

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A country's education system plays a pivotal role in promoting economic growth and shared prosperity. Sri Lanka has enjoyed high school attainment and enrollment rates for several decades. However, it still faces major challenges in the education sector, and these challenges undermine the country's inclusive growth goal and its ambition to become a competitive upper-middle-income country. This publication provides a review of Sri Lanka's education sector - from early childhood education through higher education. The aim is to answer three questions: How is Sri Lanka's education system performing, especially with respect to participation rates, learning outcomes, and labor market outcomes? How can the country address the challenges at each stage of the education process, taking into account both country and international experience and also best practices? Which policy actions should Sri Lanka make a priority for the short and medium term?

The authors identify the most critical constraints on performance and present strategic priorities and policy options to address them. To attain inclusive growth and become globally competitive, Sri Lanka needs to embark on integrated reforms across all levels of education. These reforms must address both short-term skill shortages and long-term productivity. As Sri Lanka moves up the development ladder, the priorities of primary, secondary, and postsecondary education must be aligned to meet the increasingly complex education and skill requirements.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

While adoption of new technologies is understood to enhance long-term growth and average per-capita incomes, its impact on lower-skilled workers is more complex and merits clarification. Concerns abound that advanced technologies developed in high-income countries would inexorably lead to job losses of lower-skilled, less well-off workers and exacerbate inequality. Conversely, there are countervailing concerns that policies intended to protect jobs from technology advancement would themselves stultify progress and depress productivity. This book squarely addresses both sets of concerns with new research showing that adoption of digital technologies offers a pathway to more inclusive growth by increasing adopting firms' outputs, with the jobs-enhancing impact of technology adoption assisted by growth-enhancing policies that foster sizable output expansion. The research reported here demonstrates with economic theory and data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico that lower-skilled workers can benefit from adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies biased towards skilled workers, and often do.

The inclusive jobs outcomes arise when the effects of increased productivity and expanding output overcome the substitution of workers for technology. While the substitution effect replaces some lower-skilled workers with new technology and more highly-skilled labor, the output effect can lead to an increase in the total number of jobs for less-skilled workers. Critically, output can increase sufficiently to increase jobs across all tasks and skill types within adopting firms, including jobs for lower-skilled workers, as long as lower-skilled task content remains complementary to new technologies and related occupations are not completely automated and replaced by machines. It is this channel for inclusive growth that underlies the power of pro-competitive enabling policies and institutions - such as regulations encouraging firms to compete and policies supporting the development of skills that technology augments rather than replaces - to ensure that the positive impact of technology adoption on productivity and lower-skilled workers is realized. Cross-country studies highlight additional channels from digital technology adoption to inclusive growth, namely by lowering the fixed costs of exporting through online trading platforms, and by reducing the cost of information about job opportunities through Internet-enabled worker-firm job matches.

Published abstract.

A technical background paper for this regional study is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 132.498. Show less

This report provides a status update on the human resources for health (HRH) sub-system in six Latin American and Caribbean countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. The report structures its discussion around how the health workforce is financed, organized, managed, regulated, and performing. In the area of financing, the study presents the variety of contracting mechanisms, salary levels, and financial incentives offered across the countries and their role in being able to attract and retain health workers. On the organization of the HRH sub-system, the report looks at the skill-mix, training, and distribution of health care workers concluding that although the countries have made progress towards achieving key HRH targets and in making education more accessible, there continues to be limited absorption capacity for graduates, the Primary Health Care focus of training programs needs to be strengthened, and strategies to encourage rural service have not been able to fully address the gap in the distribution of health workers.

In reviewing management strategies for HRH, the report presents how all countries have adopted the [World Health Organization] WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel to recognize foreign-trained professionals to help address shortages and fill gaps of health worker presence in rural, remote areas. However, the countries continue to struggle with putting self-sufficiency policies in place to meet HRH needs such as the lack of promotion plans, limited non-monetary incentives, and the shortage of personnel for recruitment and eventual placement. In the area of regulation, the report presents the countries' efforts to reduce precarious employment and introduce HRH safety policies and legislation to regulate disputes and negotiations. On performance, the report found mixed results in the areas of access/availability to health workers and quality of care, factors discouraging dual practice, and unjustified absenteeism of health workers.

Abstract from publisher's website. Show less

Sri Lanka has shown remarkable persistence in low female labor force participation rates - at 36 per cent in the past two years, compared with 75 per cent for same-aged men - despite overall economic growth and poverty reduction over the past decade. The trend stands in contrast to Sri Lanka's achievements in human capital development that favor women, such as high levels of female education and low total fertility rates, as well as its status as a lower-middle-income country. This study intends to better understand the puzzle of women's poor labor market outcomes in Sri Lanka. Using nationally representative secondary survey data as well as primary qualitative and quantitative research, it tests three hypotheses that would explain gender gaps in labor market outcomes: (1) household roles and responsibilities, which fall disproportionately on women, and the associated sociophysical constraints on women's mobility; (2) a human capital mismatch, whereby women are not acquiring the proper skills demanded by job markets; and (3) gender discrimination in job search, hiring, and promotion processes. Further, the analysis provides a comparison of women's experience of the labor market between the years leading up to the end of Sri Lanka's civil war (2006-09) and the years following the civil war (2010-15).

The study recommends priority areas for addressing the multiple supply- and demand-side factors to improve women's labor force participation rates and reduce other gender gaps in labor market outcomes. It also offers specific recommendations for improving women's participation in the five private sector industries covered by the primary research: commercial agriculture, garments, tourism, information and communications technology, and tea estate work. The findings are intended to influence policy makers, educators, and employment program practitioners with a stake in helping Sri Lanka achieve its vision of inclusive and sustainable job creation and economic growth. The study also aims to contribute to the work of research institutions and civil society in identifying the most effective means of engaging more women - and their untapped potential for labor, innovation, and productivity - in Sri Lanka's future.

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The economic and social prospects are daunting for the 89 million out-of-school youth who comprise nearly half of all youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the next decade, when this cohort becomes the core of the labor market, an estimated 40 million more youth will drop out, and will face an uncertain future with limited work and life skills. Furthermore, out-of-school youth often are policy orphans, positioned between sectors with little data, low implementation capacity, lack of interest in long-term sustainability of programs, insufficient funds, and little coordination across the different government agencies. This report provides a diagnostic analysis of the state of out-of-school youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the 12- to 24-year-old cohort.

This report also examines the decision path youth take as they progress through the education system and the factors that explain youth's school and work choices. It finds that individual and household characteristics, social norms, and characteristics of the school system all matter in understanding why youth drop out and remain out of school. In particular, six key factors characterize out-of-school youth: (i) most out-of-school youth drop out before secondary school; (ii) early marriage for female youth and (iii) rural residence increase the likelihood of being out of school; (iv) parental education level and (v) the number of working adults are important household factors; and (vi) lack of school access and low educational quality are binding supply-side constraints. Policy discussions on out-of-school youth are framed by these six key factors along with three entry points for intervention: retention, remediation, and integration. This report also reviews policies and programs in place for out-of-school youth across the continent. Ultimately, this report aims to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development practitioners' actions working with youth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abstract from publisher's website. Show less

Yunnan is a medium-sized Chinese province that has experienced rapid economic growth rates over the last decade and is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of 10 per cent or higher. This report investigates the readiness of the province and its education and training system to meet the skills challenges of rapid economic growth, and the nature of the skills required to achieve economic and social transformation.

The report begins with a demand-side analysis, examining historical trends in demand for skills, revealing the types of skills in demand, and projecting future demand for skills driven by economic growth and policy development. It also highlights the emerging skills shortages and mismatches in Yunnan. The rest of the report focuses on the access, quality, and relevance of Yunnan's education and training system and how effective it is in supplying the skills in demand. An overview of Yunnan's formal and non-formal education and training system is presented, followed by a focus on the formal technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system, examining its governance, industry participation, curriculum reforms, quality assurance, and finances. Analysis of the formal education and training system focuses mainly on secondary and tertiary TVET. The next section of the report addresses two major training programs outside the formal education system: non-formal training for rural workers and work-based training for urban workers, both of strategic importance. Finally, drawing on lessons from the Shanghai Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, the role of schools in developing the cognitive skills of 15-year-olds is demonstrated. The report concludes with a summary of findings and a set of policy recommendations for meeting the skills challenges and improving the education and training system.

Edited abstract from publisher's website. Show less

In the past 15 years, employment, labor market participation, and wages have grown significantly in Brazil. Improved labor market outcomes have been the main drivers of reductions in poverty and inequality. But job creation is already slowing. Continued progress in employment and labor earnings will depend on the country's ability to achieve a first critical goal: raising labor productivity. Continued improvements in the livelihoods of the poor will depend on the country's ability to achieve a second critical goal: connecting the poor to better, more productive jobs. This report analyzes Brazil's labor markets and identifies the key challenges involved in sustaining job creation, wage growth, and poverty reduction. It discusses reforms of program design and implementation in the policy areas of skills development, unemployment insurance and other labor market regulations, active labor market programs, and productive inclusion programs. The report reviews existing interventions in these four policy areas and proposes an agenda of incremental policy changes that could more effectively support the two critical goals. It also describes specific opportunities in each policy area to better coordinate programs with private sector demands and across policies, while also adapting them to improve the results for the urban and rural poor. An essential first step will be to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems to measure results by tracking the effects of programs on labor market outcomes and using that information to inform program expansion.

Abstract from publisher's website. Show less

An agenda for improving skills in the workforce relies on being able to identify where the more practical and profitable investments in the current skills profile should be made. To that end, Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) is an innovative tool used across the world to assess the education, cognitive, work-related, and socio-emotional skills stock in a population, as well as the impact of these traits on employment and earnings. Ghana is among the first two countries (along with Kenya) in Sub-Saharan Africa where this systematic assessment of skills has been carried out. The evidence collected through this assessment shows that the multidimensional nature of skills requires nurturing from early childhood education to school and university systems, as well as through school-based and on-the-job training.

This publication provides detailed insights from the survey for policy makers. These insights cover areas including investments in early childhood education, the role of improvements in the quality of education, and the creation of incentives for economic actors to invest in on-the-job training to improve Ghana's competitiveness and the well-being of its citizens.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less