Are Skills Rewarded in Sub-Saharan Africa? Determinants of Wages and Productivity in the Manufacturing Sector

Fox, Louise ; Oviedo, Ana Maria

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO CREDIT;    ACCESS TO EDUCATION;    ACCOUNTING;    ACCURATE ESTIMATES;    AGE CATEGORIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4688
RP-ID  :  WPS4688

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using recent matched employer-employeedata from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan Africancountries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills andlegal origin of the country affect the wage setting process.The wage analysis yields three main findings. First,increasing returns to education, especially for olderworkers, suggest that the expansion of education in Africahas reduced returns to education for entrants in the labormarket. Second, age effects matter not just for returns toeducation, but also for the wage setting process moregenerally. In particular, in civil-law countries, returns toseniority are rewarded only after a certain age. Third,workers exercise some power in the wage setting process buttheir influence varies by linguistic group. In common-lawcountries, union presence benefits all workers equally, notjust members, whereas in civil-law countries, only oldermembers enjoy higher wages. The authors also contrast wagepremia with relative marginal productivities for differentage, occupation, and education categories. The findings showthat in general, older, highly educated, and highly rankedworkers receive wage premia that do not reflect a higherrelative marginal productivity.