In low-income countries (LICs), most workers are engaged in low-productivity self-employment or unpaid family work, making them vulnerable to economic shocks. The prevalence of unpaid work is especially true for women, and even when women work for wages, they typically earn less than men with similar qualifications. Our research studies employment opportunities of men and women in LICs, their occupational choices, and pay, focusing on how family composition, social norms and institutional constraints influence these labour market outcomes. We also examine the role of the public sector in shielding workers from economic shocks by offering better pay and greater job stability than private firms.  

We provide a detailed empirical description of labour market outcomes in poor economies, focusing on the difference between the private and public sectors (earnings, wages' dispersion, sector sizes, workers' mobility) based on individual-level data for a number of Sub-Saharan African countries, with the particular focus on difference between men and women. 

We hope that our work will bring the attention of academics and policymakers to the existing data sources that are available for public use in SSA countries and will help promote empirical and theoretical research on poor economies. The key labour market statistics derived from our analysis, as well as our structural models, can be used as analytical tools to assess alternative policies and learn about their potential limitations.

This work is based on the two research projects described below.