African mining, gender, and local employment

Andreas Kotsadam and Anja Tolonen

No 7251, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: It is a contentious issue whether large scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has been accused of hurting women?s labor supply and economic opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze local structural shifts. It matches 109 openings and 84 closings of industrial mines to survey data for 800,000 individuals and exploits the spatial-temporal variation. With mine opening, women living within 20 km of a mine switch from self-employment in agriculture to working in services or they leave the work force. Men switch from agriculture to skilled manual labor. Effects are stronger in years of high world prices. Mining creates local boom-bust economies in Africa, with permanent effects on women?s labor market participation.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Labor Markets; Labor Policies; Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems; Population Policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Journal Article: African Mining, Gender, and Local Employment (2016)
Working Paper: African Mining, Gender, and Local Employment (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7251

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