Work In Progress: Improving Youth Labor Market Outcomes in Emerging Market and Developing Economies

JaeBin Ahn, Zidong An, John Bluedorn, Gabriele Ciminelli, Zsoka Koczan, Davide Malacrino, Daniela Muhaj and Patricia Neidlinger

No 2019/002, IMF Staff Discussion Notes from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Economic development and growth depend on a country’s young people. With most of their working life ahead of them they make up about a third of the working-age population in the typical emerging market and developing economy. But the youth in these economies face a daunting labor market—about 20 percent of them are neither employed, in school, nor in training (the youth inactivity rate). This is double the share in the average advanced economy. Were nothing else to change, bringing youth inactivity in these economies down to what it is in advanced economies and getting those inactive young people into new jobs would have a striking effect. The working-age employment rate in the average emerging market and developing economy would rise more than 3 percentage points, and real output would get a 5 percent boost.

Keywords: SDN; developing economy; youth labor market prospect; product market; employment rate; economies fall; labor market flexibility; protection legislation; youth labor markets; emerging market and developing economies; Okun’s law; labor and product market institutions; structural reforms; youth employment; labor market outcome; formality rise; labor market characteristic; labor market challenge; job formality; youth labor market outcome; job quality; job prospect; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Employment; Labor markets; Minimum wages; Women; Central Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; East Asia; South Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2019-01-22
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=45130 (application/pdf)

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:imf:imfsdn:2019/002

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Staff Discussion Notes from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().