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Policy Research Working Paper series publication roundup for the Summer of 2021

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After a summer hiatus, the roundup blog of the Policy Research Working paper series is back. This blog is a bimonthly feature highlighting recent working papers from around the World Bank Group that were published in the World Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper Series. This entry introduces seven papers published during the summer of 2021 (July-Mid September) on various topics, including gender, migration, COVID-19 and others. Here are the highlights of select findings. 

First, we present two papers that address the topic of migration. In Migration, Economic Crisis and Child Growth in Rural Guatemala : Insights from the Great Recession, Calogero Carletto and coauthors explore whether an economic shock in the United States negatively affected migrant households in Guatemala. The paper Return Migrants and the Wage Premium : Does the Legal Status of Migrants Matter by Nelly Elmallakh and Jakline Wahba examines the impact of illegal status on wages upon return using data from Egypt.

  • Migration, Economic Crisis and Child Growth in Rural Guatemala : Insights from the Great Recession shows that the reduction in remittances from the United States to Guatemala during the Great Recession had a negative impact on young Guatemalan children. The large advantages in nutritional status for young children living in migrant households in 2008 were substantially diminished four years later. Figure 1 shows using HAZ (height-for-age-z-score) how in 2008 children in migrant households were substantially better off and how this advantage had disappeared by 2012.

Figure 1: Children under three years old (Cross-sectional cohort)

Children under three years old (Cross-sectional cohort)

  • Return Migrants and the Wage Premium suggest undocumented migrants fare worse upon return to Egypt compared to documented migrants but also compared to non-migrants. The wage penalty experienced by illegal migrants is driven by bad overseas jobs. These undocumented migrants return to Egypt due to poor working conditions at their destination. These jobs are associated with lower earnings, lower savings, and an overall depletion of their human capital. On the other hand, results also suggest documented migrants enhance their human capital overseas, which lead to remuneration gains upon return.  

The third and fourth paper we introduce touch on issues related to gender inequality.  In Protectionism and Gender Inequality in Developing Countries, Erhan Artuc and coauthors explore how tariffs impact gender inequality. In Safety First : Perceived Risk of Street Harassment and Educational Choices of Women author Girija Borker examines the long-term consequences of unsafe publics spaces for women.

  • Protectionism and Gender Inequality in Developing Countries examines whether tariff protections exacerbate gender inequality in real incomes due to the differences in the extent to which tariffs impact the earnings and the cost of living of male and female headed households. The main finding of the paper is that tariff protection of developing countries creates a gender bias in trade policy. Figure 2 shows how tariff protectionism is anti-female in 42 of 54 countries analyzed.  

Figure 2: The Gender Bias of Tariff Protection Across the Developing World

The Gender Bias of Tariff Protection Across the Developing World

  • Safety First: Perceived Risk of Street Harassment and Educational Choices of Women examines the trade-offs women face between college equality and travel safety, relative to men in Delhi. The paper finds that women face significant trade-offs and are willing to attend colleges of lower quality in exchange for a route to school that is perceived safer. Women are also willing to spend additional funds on annual travel, relative to men, for a route to school that is perceived safer. The results show that street harassment is an important mechanism that could perpetuate gender inequality in both education and lifetime earnings.

The fifth and sixth paper of this roundup examine COVID-19 in Africa. COVID-19 and Children’s School Resilience : Evidence from Nigeria by Sylvain Dessy and coauthors analyze the impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on children’s resilience. Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa : Evidence from Six National Phone Surveys by Shelton Kanyanda and coauthors provides cross-country comparable estimates of the willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine in six Sub-Saharan African countries.

  •  COVID-19 and Children’s School Resilience : Evidence from Nigeria provides evidence in a developing country context that COVID-19 lockdown measures undermine children’s school resilience after the school system reopens. The lockdown measures reduced children’s school attendance probabilities in Nigeria and the magnitude of this negative effect increases with children’s age. This increases the likelihood of permanent dropout. The paper also suggests the lockdown measures increased gender inequality by favoring boys school attendance and increasing girls’ risk of becoming child brides.
  • Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccines in Sub-Saharan Africa : Evidence from Six National Phone Surveys examines willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda. The paper shows that COVID-19 vaccine acceptance is high in the six aforementioned Sub-Saharan African countries, with around 4 in 5 or more people in all but one study country willing to take an approved, free vaccine. Clusters of hesitancy vary by country, but generally comprise urban areas, richer households, and those with more education,

Finally, we feature Do Behavioral Interventions Enhance the Effects of Cash on Early Childhood Development and Its Determinants? Evidence from a Cluster-Randomized Trial in Madagascar by Saugato Datta and coauthors. The paper evaluates the effects of interventions based on behavioral science on measures of early childhood socio-cognitive development for children from households receiving cash transfers in Madagascar. The study finds evidence that households subject to the behavioral interventions undertake more desirable parenting behaviors, interact more with their children, prepare more meals at home and report lower food insecurity that households receiving only cash. It is also the case that children in households subject to a behavioral intervention perform better than children living in households that only receive cash on several measures of socio-cognitive development, including language learning and social skills.

The following are other interesting papers published during the summer. Please make sure to read them as well.

The Policy Research Working Paper Series encourages the exchange of ideas on development and quickly disseminates the findings of research that is in progress.

 

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