Are Skills Rewarded in Sub-Saharan Africa? Determinants of Wages and Productivity in the Manufacturing Sector
Using recent matched employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process. The wage analysis yields th...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/08/9755051/skills-rewarded-sub-saharan-africa-determinants-wages-productivity-manufacturing-sector http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6811 |
| Summary: | Using recent matched employer-employee
data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African
countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and
legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process.
The wage analysis yields three main findings. First,
increasing returns to education, especially for older
workers, suggest that the expansion of education in Africa
has reduced returns to education for entrants in the labor
market. Second, age effects matter not just for returns to
education, but also for the wage setting process more
generally. In particular, in civil-law countries, returns to
seniority are rewarded only after a certain age. Third,
workers exercise some power in the wage setting process but
their influence varies by linguistic group. In common-law
countries, union presence benefits all workers equally, not
just members, whereas in civil-law countries, only older
members enjoy higher wages. The authors also contrast wage
premia with relative marginal productivities for different
age, occupation, and education categories. The findings show
that in general, older, highly educated, and highly ranked
workers receive wage premia that do not reflect a higher
relative marginal productivity. |
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