Does Employment Generation Really Matter for Poverty Reduction?

Gutierrez, Catalina ; Orecchia, Carlo ; Paci, Pierella ; Serneels, Pieter

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE TERMS;    ABSOLUTE VALUE;    AGGREGATE EMPLOYMENT;    AGGREGATE GROWTH;    AGGREGATE LEVEL;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4432
RP-ID  :  WPS4432

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper analyzes how theemployment/productivity profile of growth and its sectoralpattern are correlated with poverty reduction. The authorsuse a sample of 104 short-run growth spells in developingcountries, between 1980 and 2001. They also identify someconditions of the labor market and the economic environmentthat are associated with employment-intensive growth orspecific sectoral growth. The results show that, in theshort run, although the aggregate employment-rate intensityof growth does not matter for poverty reduction any morethan the aggregate productivity intensity of growth, thesectoral pattern of employment growth and productivitygrowth is important. Employment-intensive growth in thesecondary sector is associated with decreases in poverty,while employment-intensive growth in agriculture iscorrelated with poverty increases. Similarly,productivity-intensive growth in agriculture is associatedwith decreases in poverty. Although the study does notaddress causality, coincidence of these phenomena in thislarge sample of heterogeneous countries and periods suggeststhat, in the short run, the sectoral productivity andemployment pattern of growth may have important implicationsfor poverty alleviation. Therefore, policies for reducingpoverty should not overlook the sectoral productivity andemployment implications of different growth policies.