Work Under Attack: Terrorism and Local Labor Markets

Olayinka Oyekola
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Olayinka Oyekola: Department of Economics, University of Exeter

No 2607, Discussion Papers from University of Exeter, Department of Economics

Abstract: How does terrorism affect labor markets in developing countries? We combine georeferenced data on terrorist incidents with nationally representative employment data from Nigeria to examine this question. Exploiting within-location variation in exposure to terrorist attacks over time, we show that terrorism reduces employment. A one standard deviation increase in exposure lowers the probability of employment by 0.7 percentage points, or roughly 1 percent of average employment, with substantially larger effects for women. Beyond reducing employment, terrorism shifts workers away from regular and cash-paying jobs and lowers employment in sales, services, and unskilled manual occupations. The findings identify labor market disruption as an important economic cost of insecurity in developing countries.

Keywords: terrorism; employment; labor markets; gender; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 J21 J22 J23 J46 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-08
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