What Are Social Safety Nets? * Social safety nets are non-contributory transfers designed to provide regular and predictable support to targeted poor and vulnerable people. These are also referred to as “social assistance” or “social transfers.” Social safety nets are part of broader social protection systems that may also include measures such as contributory insurance … Continue reading
via Wanted: Productive jobs for the developing world – YouTube.
Based on data from the World Bank and using a sample of forty-three developing economies, the author finds that the growth rate of per capita GDP is linearly dependent upon population growth, both the young and old dependency ratios, the mortality rate. Continue reading
“High-skilled emigration is an emotive issue that in popular discourse is often referred to as brain drain, conjuring images of extremely negative impacts on developing countries. Recent discussions of brain gain, diaspora effects, and other advantages of migration have been used to argue against this, but much of the discussion has been absent of evidence.” write John Gibson and … Continue reading
The World of Work Report 2012 provides a comprehensive analysis of recent labour market and social trends, assesses risks of social unrest and presents employment projections for the next five years. The report emphasizes that while employment has begun to recover slowly, job quality is deteriorating and there is a growing sense of unfairness. Moreover, … Continue reading
In a sample of developing countries, growth in the fourth quarter of 2011 slowed amidst considerable economic uncertainty. Figure 1 shows median growth rates of output, employment, wages, and the median unemployment rate for 11 countries with complete series on all four indicators. Median growth in gross domestic product (GDP) weakened slightly over the fourth … Continue reading
India’s faltering growth may be disappointing, but it’s still much more rapid than the continued stagnation of the U.S. economy. In certain fields, at least there are still opportunities to be seized in India by those with a taste for adventure. Labor economists call this kind of migration the “reverse brain drain.” Ironically, the migrants … Continue reading
“I believe that every developing country, including those in Sub-Saharan Africa, can grow at 8 percent or more continuously for several decades, significantly reducing poverty and becoming middle- or even high-income countries in the span of one or two generations, if its government has the right policy framework to facilitate the private sector’s development along … Continue reading
About one in three young Arab women between the ages of 23 and 29 participate in their country’s labor force versus about eight in 10 young Arab men. This gender gap is generally consistent across the 22 Arab countries and territories Gallup surveyed in 2011, but young women’s labor force participation is slightly higher in … Continue reading
The structure of the economy – as represented by the relative sizes of the various industry sectors – is always changing. Normally the rate of change is so slow we don’t notice it. At present, however, the pace of change is much quicker than usual. These pressures are coming from outside Australia. Many are the … Continue reading
“Conventional wisdom suggests that international migration of the highly skilled from poor to rich countries — the so-called brain drain phenomenon — threatens development.” writes the OECD in its new report Migration and the Brain Drain Phenomenon. It then adss: “Comparing emigration rates of the highly educated — the share of a country’s nationals with a … Continue reading