Gender earnings gap among the youth in Malawi

While young women's engagement in economic activities is an essential component of development, gender gaps are still commonly observed worldwide and especially in developing countries like Malawi. This study introduces recent data to provide new evidence for a sub‐Saharan country that has yet been closely examined. Using the International Labour Organization's School‐to‐Work Transition Survey (ILO SWTS) individual‐level data, I examine the gender earnings gap among the youth in Malawi by conducting Mincer earnings regressions with Heckman selection correction and applying Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition methods. I find that young women in Malawi earn significantly less than young men and that women are significantly less likely to engage in income‐generating work activities. Also, substantial unadjusted gender earnings difference in Malawi is overwhelmingly due to differences in returns. Moreover, detailed decomposition results show that gender differences in work‐related individual characteristics and firm characteristics also contribute to the gender earnings gap. The results suggest that any effort to reduce the gender earnings gap should involve improved access to education as well as better workplaces for women.     

Determinants of Indonesian rural secondary school enrolment: gender,neighbourhood and school characteristics

In recent years the school enrolment rates of children aged 13–15 and 16–18 years have increased sharply in Indonesia, not only in urban but also in rural areas. Using various data sets spanning the years from 1993 to 2007, this paper investigates changes in factors associated with the enrolment of secondary school aged children in rural areas. It sheds light on the roles of gender and of neighbourhood and school characteristics, which have rarely been examined in the Indonesian context. The study finds that the disappearance of a gender gap in secondary enrolments between 1993 and 2007 contributed significantly to the rise in the overall enrolment rate. The findings also show that children living in wealthier communities and communities with a high proportion of enrolled children are more likely to attend school. Finally, various school characteristics are shown not to be strongly or consistently correlated with school enrolment.     

Family formation and economic insecurity among youth in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Youth unemployment continues to be a burden and concern for the South African government. Being economically insecure, the situation is dire with the government needing to provide resources to a population who should be economically independent. There is a need to look at the social determinants of economic insecurity among youth in South Africa. Family formations could either promote or inhibit economic well-being. This article aims to assess whether economic security improves as youth enter into unions and/or have children. The South African National Income Dynamics Study is used. Unmarried youth with no children are measured at baseline (2008) and followed up over time to examine whether economic security status changes as union status changes. Results show that while economic security, employment (from 7.61% to 25.67%) and net income per month (from 19.48% to 32.79%) increase over time, youth who marry but have no children have the lowest risk of economic insecurity (relative risk ratio?=?0.02, p < 0.05) compared with those who remain unmarried but have children. Special attention needs to be given to youth who have children and are unmarried and among those who marry and have children soon after.     

Financial reform and credit extension in Lesotho

The study on which this article is based was concerned with establishing whether the lending behaviour of Lesotho's commercial banks in relation to the private sector has changed following the reforms that have been implemented since 1980. The influence of macroeconomic variables on agricultural credit and on private sector lending provided through the existing commercial banks during the period 1980 to 1993 was examined. The results showed a high and significant association between total credit extension and the general performance of the economy. Macroeconomic variables such as returns on financial securities in Lesotho and bonds in the Republic of South Africa, bank discount rates and the interest rates on saving deposits applicable in Lesotho had a key effect on the extension of credit by commercial banks to the private sector. The study concluded that credit extension activities in Lesotho during the study period were sensitive to the macroeconomic environment.     

Market structure and bank conduct in Lesotho

Lesotho's banking industry is highly concentrated and is perceived to be uncompetitive. However, high market concentration does not necessarily imply a lack of competition in the market. Until now, there is no evidence supporting the view that the industry is uncompetitive. Therefore, this paper uses monthly bank-level data from 2013:10 to 2019:5, and employs the Panzar-Rosse H-statistic and the Boone indicator to examine competition in Lesotho's banking industry. We find that the industry acts as a ‘monopoly’ or a ‘perfectly colluding oligopoly’. We, therefore, argue that policy makers should set up the long anticipated antitrust agency to oversee conduct in this industry, and all other industries to improve societal welfare.     

Social protection in Lesotho: Innovations and reform challenges

Given its current socioeconomic conditions and fiscal ability, Lesotho has achieved an impressive record in creating a basic social assistance and social protection system, informed by political commitment and through budget reprioritisation. It has set up and administered near universal schemes operating at scale with fairly low transaction costs, addressing core areas and serving vulnerable constituencies – including the aged, orphaned and vulnerable children and children of school-going age. A contribution-based comprehensive national social security scheme to provide coverage for Lesotho workers and their families is also planned. Nevertheless, the task of providing adequate social protection coverage faces systems and delivery challenges; several human development indicators have worsened, and most of the Millennium Development Goals are far from being achieved. There is scope for creating greater fiscal space by establishing a compulsory national contributory scheme, and donor support in the short to medium term is inevitable.     

Estimating the migratory mobility of the youth living in small Russian towns: A school Leavers’ interview

This paper draws on the findings of a sociological survey conducted out in four small Russian towns—Vyazniki in Vladimir oblast, Yartsevo in Smolensk oblast, Shar’e in Kostroma oblast, and Buinsk in the Republic of Tatarstan. Interviews with 500 school leavers made it possible to evaluate the migratory intentions of young townspeople and to identify factors strengthening and weakening their migratory mobility.     

The paradox of Black pupil enrolment growth rates in South African schools

In this paper, an outline is presented of a paradoxical feature of past trends in the demand for and supply of schooling to the Black population of South Africa. The paradox is that demand for Black schooling increased despite disincentives to do so under the apartheid policy. As background, a brief historical review of the provision of schooling to Blacks is also presented.     

Food‐aid dependency in Lesotho: Issues and policy implications

This article analyses food‐aid dependency in Lesotho and how it can be reduced. The study uses primary data on food aid, statistics collected from various food‐aid agencies and institutions, and secondary data obtained from government sources. Food‐aid de pendency is likely to continue in the long term, as food aid enhances food security in Le sotho by supplementing commercial imports to meet the shortfall in local cereal produc tion. Food aid improves the nutritional and consumption levels of vulnerable Lesotho households but shows no correlation with producer and consumer prices. If the level of food‐aid dependence is to be reduced, measures to alleviate poverty and generate income must be implemented.     

Vocational Training and Gender: Wages and Occupational Mobility among Young Workers

This paper investigates the relationship between the genderwage gap, the choice of training occupation, and occupationalmobility. We use longitudinal data for young workers with apprenticeshiptraining in West Germany. Workers make occupational career choicesearly in their careers and women and men pursue very differentoccupational careers. We reconsider whether through occupationalsegregation women are locked in low-wage careers or whetherthey can move up to higher wage paths through mobility. We furthermoreinvestigate whether patterns have changed across cohorts duringthe period 1975–2001 and whether effects vary across thedistribution. The main results are, first, while there existsa persistent gender wage gap over experience, the gap has decreasedover time. Second, in the lower part of the wage distribution,the gap is highest and it increases with experience. Third,occupational mobility is lower for women than for men and thewage gains due to occupational mobility are higher for men thanfor women, especially in the lower part of the wage distribution.We conclude that occupational mobility has reduced the genderwage gap, but lock-in effects are still stronger for women comparedto men. Footnotes ¹ E-mail addresses: fitzenberger{at}wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de; astrid.kunze{at}nhh.no     

Strangers in a strange land: citizenship and the immigration debate in Lesotho

Lesotho, a small sovereign country located within the borders of the Republic of South Africa, displays a paradox as regards immigration. It lacks the attributes of a typical receiving country, but it has been attractive to immigrants, especially from those countries in sub-Saharan Africa which are not members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Lesotho's attraction to immigrants is explained largely by its ability to offer better remuneration for skilled workers than many non-SADC sub-Saharan African countries, and by its strategic location as an easy transit gate into South Africa, widely perceived as the ‘Europe’ of the continent. However, the influx of immigrants into Lesotho has generated a wave of anti-foreigner feelings among sections of the population and heightened the debate about the relevance of foreigners to national development. The paper reiterates the principal conventional arguments against immigration: that it compromises jobs, raises crime rates, intensifies the spread of diseases, undermines the homogeneity of the state and nation and exerts additional strain on the country's already overstretched resources. Demonstrating the limits of these arguments, the paper argues that for Lesotho, grappling with unemployment and manpower shortages, immigration is an asset rather than a liability because it creates jobs, brings in skills that are otherwise in short supply and raises the country's international profile and competitiveness.     

Unequal school enrollment rights,rent yields gap,and increased inequality: The case of Shanghai

This paper first builds a simple theoretic model to explore how a special feature of enrollment policy of public primary schools in urban China, the unequal enrollment right between home owners and tenants, would produce rent-yields gap between different housings. The model also predicts that an enrollment policy featuring with tenant discrimination, accompanying with strict credit constraint, would reduce the chance of kids from middle-income families to attend better public schools while allow families with high initial wealth to access better high-quality public education at a lower cost. Using a hedonic pricing model, we find that, in Shanghai, rental yields of housings in neighborhoods associated with reputed public primary schools is on average 0.1–0.35 percentage-point lower than those associated with ordinary ones. We also explore how the rent-yields-gap varies across housing types, locations and changes over time. Nonetheless, our simulation computation suggests that the estimated opportunity cost of holding such schools in Shanghai is generally not a big amount and affordable for many families. Overall, the high entry costs of owing a housing is the major obstacle to access high-quality public primary education in urban China. These findings highlight how an education policy with features of inequality may contribute to education and residential segregation, and then reduce intergenerational mobility.     

Do home gardens improve the nutrition of rural pre-schoolers in Lesotho?

In this study, the contribution of household gardens to the nutritional status of pre-schoolers in Lesotho was investigated. The anthropometric status of children under five years of age was measured in five randomly selected villages in five districts of Lesotho during November and December 1999. In each district, the nutritional status of an average of 538 children was assessed. Production from household gardens was investigated to determine whether households had access to vegetables throughout the year. Despite a significant association between the presence of home gardens and lower incidences of wasting and underweight, the nutritional status of children in households with or without home gardens in sampled areas is poor. Some 49 per cent of children from households with food gardens were stunted, 29 per cent were underweight, and 24 per cent showed wasting. Many households do not produce enough vegetables rich in vitamin A to meet both their consumption and nutritional needs. Recommendations include intensified production of a wider mix of crops that include starchy crops, vitamin A-rich vegetables and fruit trees to ensure a significant impact on children's nutritional status.     

Poverty,shocks and school disruption episodes among adolescents in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

While conventional explanations of drop-out and grade repetition acknowledge the role of socioeconomic factors, this paper uses data collected in a KwaZulu-Natal study of adolescents to investigate the explicit contribution of poverty and shocks to school disruption episodes. The asset-vulnerability framework developed by Moser and others is used to develop a poverty-based theory of school disruption. Evidence against such a theory is also put forward. The results indicate that the poverty-based theory accounts in part for school disruption. Poverty is predictive of school disruption, female adolescents are particularly vulnerable to drop-out episodes, and adolescent pregnancy emerges as an important influence. However, household shocks do not seem to predict school disruption. Programmes that offer incentives for school attendance and improving school quality are put forward as policy options for South Africa.