Job quality and poverty in Latin America

Peter Brummund, Christopher Ryan Mann and Carlos Rodriguez Castelan
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán

No 7927, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Labor market dynamics have played a significant role in the remarkable social gains experienced across Latin America over the recent past. Assessing the quality of employment, beyond the perspective of income, to include other fundamental aspects of jobs --such as whether jobs are secure, provide benefits, or allow human capital accumulation -- can shed light on the sustainability of these achievements. This is particularly pertinent given the region's current economic slowdown. Using harmonized data for 17 countries in Latin America, this paper connects the role of job quality with the recent process of inclusive growth across the region, and particularly with how individuals worked their way out of poverty. The paper first proposes a multi-dimensional measure for job quality, and then uses this measure to compare job quality across countries and over time. The paper also studies some of the correlates of job quality and the relationship between job quality and poverty. The main finding is that job quality across the region began to increase since 2004, coupled with the favorable terms of trade brought to the region by the commodities super cycle of the 2000s. The best predictors of job quality are age, gender, education, formal employment, and union membership. Both health and retirement benefits are the dimensions of job quality that are best correlated with not living in poverty.

Keywords: Small Area Estimation Poverty Mapping; Poverty Monitoring&Analysis; Poverty Impact Evaluation; Poverty Lines; Poverty Assessment; Poverty Diagnostics; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12-21
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/484611482350883806/pdf/WPS7927.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Job quality and poverty in Latin America (2018)
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:wbk:wbrwps:7927

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().