Unemployment duration in poor developing economies: evidence from urban Ethiopia

Seife Dendir ()
Additional contact information
Seife Dendir: Radford University, USA

Journal of Developing Areas, 2006, vol. 40, issue 1, 181-201

Abstract: The literature investigating unemployment duration in developing countries is rather scarce. In this paper, parametric and semi-parametric models are estimated to analyze the determinants of unemployment duration in a developing country context. Data from a nationally representative urban household survey in Ethiopia are used. The data reveal that mean unemployment duration in urban Ethiopia is very long—3 years for completed spells and 4.7 years for incomplete spells. The econometric evidence shows that the hazard rate into employment is significantly affected by age, marital status, highest level of education attained, location and support mechanism while unemployed. Ethnic background and gender are not found to be important determinants. Appropriate tests show that these results are not driven by unobservable heterogeneities. The nonparametric hazard function and the baseline hazard retrieved from the semi-parametric estimation reveal a unique shape with alternating signs of duration dependence across a range of years.

Keywords: Urban; Unemployment Duration; Hazard Rate; Semi-parametric Estimation; Africa; Ethiopia. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 O55 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jda/summary/v040/40.1dendir.html

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jda:journl:vol.40:year:2006:issue1:pp:181-201

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Developing Areas from Tennessee State University, College of Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abu N.M. Wahid ().