Mobile Broadband, Poverty, and Labor Outcomes in Tanzania

Kalvin Bahia, Pau Castells, Genaro Cruz, Takaaki Masaki, Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán and Viviane Sanfelice

The World Bank Economic Review, 2023, vol. 37, issue 2, 235-256

Abstract: What are the impacts of expanding mobile broadband coverage on poverty, household consumption, and labor-market outcomes in developing countries? Who benefits from improved coverage of mobile internet? To respond to these questions, this paper applies a difference-in-differences estimation using panel household survey data combined with geospatial information on the rollout of mobile broadband coverage in Tanzania. The results reveal that being covered by 3G networks has a large positive effect on total household consumption and poverty reduction, driven by positive impacts on labor-market outcomes. Working-age individuals living in areas covered by mobile internet witnessed an increase in labor-force participation, wage employment, and non-farm self-employment, and a decline in farm employment. These effects vary by age, gender, and skill level. Younger and more skilled men benefit the most through higher labor-force participation and wage employment, while high-skilled women benefit from transitions from self-employed farm work into non-farm employment.

Keywords: Africa; consumption; labor-force participation; welfare; Tanzania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhad003 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:wbecrv:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:235-256.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The World Bank Economic Review is currently edited by Eric Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik

More articles in The World Bank Economic Review from World Bank Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().