Employment in South Asia : A New Dataset
This paper presents a new dataset of comparable employment indicators for South Asian countries, constructed from more than 60 primary data sources from 2001 to 2017. The main contribution of the paper is to curate the information provided by indiv...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/736971552481304605/Employment-in-South-Asia-A-New-Dataset http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31405 |
| Summary: | This paper presents a new dataset of
comparable employment indicators for South Asian countries,
constructed from more than 60 primary data sources from 2001
to 2017. The main contribution of the paper is to curate the
information provided by individual respondents to censuses
and surveys, in a way that is consistent across countries
and over time. The usefulness of the dataset is illustrated
by conducting a rigorous assessment of employment
characteristics, of changes in employment over time, and of
the short- and long-run relationship between economic growth
and employment growth in South Asia. The exercise shows that
agriculture still employs the majority of the working-age
population across the region and, except in Sri Lanka, more
than half of the employment is self-employment or unpaid
family work. The paper also shows that employment rates are
generally decreasing in South Asia, and that in some
countries female employment rates are falling rapidly.
Seasonal growth patterns are shown to affect the composition
of employment, while non-seasonal changes in short-run
growth affect the overall level of employment. The paper
estimates that, in the long run, one percentage point growth
of gross domestic product has led on average to a 0.34
percent increase in employment. |
|---|