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In this paper, we test if households where women participate in decisions regarding children's education and allocation of household education budgets incur more equal expenditures on education of boys and girls. Moreover, we test if women's awareness of gender equality can reduce inequality between boys and girls at the household level. We estimate these effects using three rounds of longitudinal data of rural households in Pakistan. We use both household and year fixed effects to control for endogeneity of the dependent and explanatory variables. The results suggest that households where women participate in decisions regarding children's education spend higher shares of education expenditures on education of girls in the secondary school age group (11-16). The results of Heckman Selection Model, corroborated by an estimated logit model, suggest that in households where women participate in children's education decisions and where women are aware of gender equality in education, girl children are more likely to be enrolled in school. The paper contributes to the refinement of measures of women's empowerment and to understanding of the mechanisms to achieve gender equality in education.

Internal migration dominates population mobility in Indonesia; according to the 2010 census, there were almost 30 million permanent migrants, around 12.5 percent of the population. The effects of this internal migration on the second generation continue to be under-explored. This paper investigates the long-term impact of parents' migration on their children's intergenerational per capita expenditure when adults. We argue that parental migration affects the human capital investment on their children, which has a direct impact on the children's outcomes when adults and on their deviation from the parents' economic status, hence their intergenerational mobility. We pooled the data of five waves of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, and we tackled the self-selection of parents' migration using linear regression with endogenous treatment. Our findings show that despite the fact that parental migration increases the education level of children and their per capita expenditure, it increases intergenerational mobility only when grown-up children live in urban areas, come from the poorest parents, and migrated themselves in their childhood. The left-behind children have more intergenerational mobility only if their father migrated, while there is no significant impact on intergenerational mobility if their mother migrated. The results are consistent with the persistence of individual inequality in Indonesia.

We study the impact of conflict on both the extensive and the intensive margin of child labor in Afghanistan. We identify and test two main mechanisms. First, if conflict reduces a household income through a decline in parent's compensations, child labor may insure against the decrease in consumption (extensive margin). Second, a child may work longer hours if the marginal benefits of working under conflict is greater than its marginal cost, which may depend on the relative compensations between adults and children, and on the alternative activities (e.g. schooling). Using detailed conflict data from the Afghan War Diary we identify the effect of conflict relying on a shift-share IV strategy. We find that conflict increases the probability that girls work, but reduces the number of hours worked. Our results suggest that this is due to a decrease in household income and an increase in the relative compensations of adults.

Rural youth are an important yet underutilised resource for agricultural growth and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In rural areas, the prevalence of vulnerable, low-quality jobs constitutes the main labour market challenge. The International Labour Organization estimates that among the working youth in SSA as many as 80% are employed in the informal economy, typically considered a more vulnerable form of employment, and close to 70% are poor. Many of those young people live in rural areas. Given that the agriculture sector remains the most important economic sector in the region, policies that support its development and increase the human capacities of rural youth can significantly improve employment opportunities and quality.

The impact of hosting refugees on child labor in host countries is unclear. This paper estimates both the short and the long term consequences of hosting refugees fleeing from the genocides of Rwanda and Burundi in the Kagera region of Tanzania between 1991 and 2004. The study uses longitudinal data from the Kagera Health and Development Survey. Using the exogenous nature of refugee settlement in Kagera due to geographic and logistical reasons, we find the causal impact of hosting refugees on child labor and children's schooling outcomes. The results suggest that the impact of hosting refugees on children living in Kagera decreases child labor in the short run (between 1991 and 1994), but increases it in the longer run (1991–2004). The results are heterogeneous across gender and age. The study aims at understanding the mechanisms behind the variation in child labor outcome due to the forced migration shock exploring various channels.

La prévalence d’emplois vulnérables constitue le principal défi du marché du travail dans les zones rurales. L’organisation Internationale du travail estime que parmi les jeunes travailleurs de l’Afrique subsaharienne (AFSS), 80% sont employés dans l’économie informelle, généralement considérée comme une forme d’emploi vulnérable et près de 70% sont pauvres. La plupart de ces jeunes vivent dans des zones rurales. Étant donné que le secteur agricole reste le secteur économique le plus important de la région, les politiques qui soutiennent le développement et augmentent les capacités humaines de la jeunesse rurale peuvent améliorer considérablement les opportunités d’emploi.

Die ländliche Jugend Sub-Sahara Afrikas (SSA) ist eine wichtige, jedoch unzureichend genutzte Ressource für landwirtschaftliches Wachstum und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in der Region. In ländlichen Gebieten stellt die hohe Anzahl unsicherer und qualitativ schlechter Arbeitsplätze die wichtigste Herausforderung für den Arbeitsmarkt dar. Laut Schätzungen der Internationalen Arbeitsorganisation (International Labour Organization) sind bis zu 80% der arbeitenden Jugendlichen in SSA in der informellen Wirtschaft tätig, die typischerweise als eine besonders unsichere Form der Beschäftigung angesehen wird, und fast 70% sind arm. Viele dieser jungen Menschen leben in ländlichen Gebieten. Da der Agrarsektor nach wie vor der wichtigste Wirtschaftssektor in der Region ist, können Maßnahmen, die seine Entwicklung unterstützen und die Kapazitäten der ländlichen Jugend erhöhen, die Anzahl und Qualität der Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten erheblich verbessern.

The low level and adverse trends of youth employment in Africa and in the Middle East in the last decade are key driving factors of poverty, stress migration, frustration and political instability. There needs to be a sense of urgency to change the situation. How can employment, especially for youth, be created rapidly in these regions? The paper discusses different policies for the generation of mass employment of both skilled and unskilled labor. The sectoral priorities differ within the regions, with rural and agricultural jobs playing a more significant role in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Both SSA and the Arab region show potentials for largescale public works programs. Un-orthodox economic policy actions are called for due to the pressing nature of the youth unemployment situation. These policies should aim at generating productive employment improving skills, and can be implemented both at the central and at the local level. Countries should be responsible for ownership, accountability and self-monitoring of policies and programs. Large scale international funding support should be considered when planning, implementation and supervision are actually credible and results oriented.

In this paper we use a unique dataset that combines spatial detailed information on conflict events and on households' activity, to show a positive and significant correlation between violent conflict and entrepreneurship in Afghanistan. We build spatial and IV identifications to estimate the effect of different measures of conflict on the investment in a range of private economic activities of nearby households. The results consistently show that the level of conflict, its impact, and to a lesser extent its frequency, increase the probability that a household engages in self-employment activities with lower capital intensity and in activities related to subsistence agriculture, and reduce the probability of investing in higher capital self-employment. Overall, by increasing entrepreneurship, conflict pushes the country towards a regressive structural change. However, the magnitude of most of the effects is quite small. The paper contributes to a literature that, due to data constraints and identification issues, has not yet delivered conclusive evidence.