Urban Agglomerations and Employment Transitions in Ethiopia

Kamei, Akito ; Nakamura, Shohei

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: URBANIZATION;    LABOR MARKET;    URBAN AGGLOMERATION;    SPATIAL ECONOMICS;    INFORMALITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9184
RP-ID  :  WPS9184

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Agglomeration boosts economic growth. Avast literature has empirically assessed the effects ofagglomeration by estimating the city population elasticityon wages. This conventional approach is not necessarilysuitable for analyzing urbanization at the early stage indeveloping countries, where a majority of urban workersengage in self-employment and/or informal jobs.Focusing onone of the poorest and largest among those countries, thispaper sheds light on an aspect of urbanization andagglomeration: the transition in the mode of labor fromself-employment/informal jobs to wage employment/formaljobs. Applying the instrumental variable approach tonational labor force survey data sets, the analysisunderscores several labor market transitions across space inurban Ethiopia. First, the town population size and theshare of workers with wage employment are stronglycorrelated. The probability of engaging in wage workincreases by 4.5 percentage points with a log increase inpopulation size. Second, this relationship is particularlystrong among disadvantaged workers, such as the female,young, and/or less educated population. Finally, the studydocuments higher labor force participation and lowerunderemployment in larger towns.