The Impact of Mobile Phones on Change in Employment Status in South Africa

Lukasz Grzybowski and Patel Zubair Maghmood
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Patel Zubair Maghmood: University of Cape Town, School of Economics, Rondebosch, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

Review of Network Economics, 2023, vol. 22, issue 2, 85-114

Abstract: In this paper we analyse whether having a mobile phone impacts chances of getting employed. We use five waves of panel data from the National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS), which was conducted in South Africa between years 2008 and 2017. In the estimation we include a vector of observable individual and household characteristics and account for unobserved heterogeneity amongst individuals. The estimation results suggest that mobile phone ownership has a positive impact on the change in employment status from unemployed to employed. On the other hand, ownership of a computer by a household and computer literacy do not increase the likelihood of getting employed. The average probability of becoming employed increases from 54.2 % when no one among unemployed adults has a mobile phone to 57.4 % when all of them have a mobile phone, which is an increase of 5.9 %.

Keywords: mobile phones; employment; NIDS; South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L50 L96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Working Paper: The Impact of Mobile Phones on Change in Employment Status in South Africa (2024)
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DOI: 10.1515/rne-2022-0008

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