In School or at Work? Evidence from a Crisis

This paper examines the effect of labor market opportunities on schooling-employment decisions in 12 urban areas in Argentina over 12 years, emphasizing the recession/crisis years 1998-2002. The effects of macroeconomic swings on schooling decisions are examined with a focus on whether the income or substitution effect dominates as macroeconomic conditions change. I demonstrate that over "typical" years deteriorating job rates (or wages) increase the probability of attending school and decrease the probability of combining work and school, particularly for boys. After controlling for household and individual characteristics I find that the probability of being in school for secondary school youth was about 6 percentage points higher in 2002 than in 1998 (before the recession started). In fact, a 10 percent decrease in the job rate alone has been responsible for a 5.4 percentage point rise in the probability of school attendance since 2000. This effect is attenuated during the 2002 crisis when household expectations change in response to shocks. These estimates allow for the fact that a new Federal Education Law (FEL) in 1996 extended mandatory education to 10 years and might have affected schooling outcomes.schooling decision, macroeconomic shocks, local labor market opportunities

ICT Skills and Employment: A Randomized Experiment

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact that the acquisition of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) skills has on the labor market of two Latin-American cities: Buenos Aires and Bogota. Using cross-sectional data from an experiment that randomly assigned the ICT skills line in the resume, we assess the returns to ICT skills. For that, we submit approximately 11,000 fictitious Curricula Vitae (CVs) for real job vacancies published daily in the main job search engines in both cities. We estimate a binary choice model to identify differences in callbacks depending on ICT skills. We also analyze how gender, place of residence and occupational categories interact with ICT skills. Our econometric analysis supports previous literature suggesting that ICT skills could increase the probabilities of inclusion in the labor market, mainly for those at some level of disadvantage. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that quantifies the effect of ICT skills on employment. Our findings suggest that having ICT skills in the resume can increase the probability of receiving a callback by around 1 percent or more. This effect is much stronger in Bogota than in Buenos Aires, which suggests that ICT could be acting differently depending on the characteristics of the labor market.Information and Communication Technologies, hiring decisions, labor demand

Early Childhood Stimulation Interventions in Developing Countries: A Comprehensive Literature Review

This report reviews the effectiveness of early childhood stimulation interventions in developing countries. The report aims to answer the questions: What works in terms of early stimulation for young children in developing countries? For whom and under what conditions do these programs work and why do they work. The report is divided into several sections. Firstly, a brief discussion of the importance of early stimulation for young children in developing countries is provided. Secondly, the methods used to identify and characterize studies are provided and a review of randomized or quasi-experimental trials is presented. Thirdly, a review of the evidence for who benefits most from early interventions is presented followed by a review of program characteristics that affect the success of interventions and an examination of potential mechanisms through which interventions achieve their effects. Finally, recommendations for practice and future research are provided.child development, early stimulation, mothers, parenting, developing countries

Part-Time Work, Gender and Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Developing Country

This paper investigates the relationship between part-time work and job satisfaction using a recent household survey from Honduras. In contrast to previous work for developed countries, this paper does not find a preference for part-time work among women. Instead, both women and men tend to prefer full- time work, although the preference for working longer hours is stronger for men. Consistent with an interpretation of working part-time as luxury consumption, the paper finds that partnered women with children, poor women or women working in the informal sector are more likely to prefer full-time work than single women, partnered women without children, non-poor women or women working in the formal sector. These results have important implications for the design of family and child care policies in low-income countries.job satisfaction, gender, part-time work, job flexibility

The Labor Market Return to an Attractive Face: Evidence from a Field Experiment

We provide new evidence on the link between beauty and hiring practices in the labor market. Specifically, we study if people with less attractive faces are less likely to be contacted after submitting a resume. Our empirical strategy is based on an experimental approach. We sent fictitious resumes with pictures of attractive and unattractive faces to real job openings in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We find that attractive people receive 36 percent more responses (callbacks) than unattractive people. Given the experimental design, this difference can be attributed to the exogenous manipulation of facial attractiveness of our fake job applicants.facial attractiveness, callback rates, labor market discrimination

The Psychometric Properties of Child Care Quality Measures in Ecuador : Lessons for Monitoring Process Variables at Scale

This paper analyzes four instruments that are widely used to measure the quality of centers serving children ages 0 to 36 months - the CLASS, the ITERS-R, the CC-IT-HOME, and the MITRCC – and that were administered to a sample of 404 child care centers in Ecuador. We first assess the psychometric properties of these instruments in their first application in Ecuador. Specifically, we examine their internal consistency, test the underlying subscale structure by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), verify construct validity by testing associations with quality-related factors (e.g., child-caregiver ratio), and check concurrent validity of the instruments’ total scores. We then explore how we can use the data from these instruments to inform the development of a simple, less costly checklist that programs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) can employ to monitor service quality. To that end, we look at the correlation of the separate subscales from the simpler measures (ITERSR, CC-IT-HOME, and MITRCC) with each of the dimensions of the CLASS. In addition, we map the subscales of all of the instruments to a set of child-caregiver interaction constructs identified in the literature as core for the healthy development of children, and used CFA to test how well the instrument subscales loaded onto each latent construct separately. Overall, the instruments showed excellent consistency. The first CFA also demonstrated that the data were a good fit to the published structure of each instrument. Associations with quality related factors exhibited the expected signs, and concurrent validity across instruments revealed low correlations between overall scores on CLASS and the other instruments. Moderate correlations were found between certain dimensions of CLASS and the subscales of other instruments that reflected a priori similar constructs (in particular the Listening and Talking, Interaction, and Personal Care Routines subscales of the ITERS-R). Finally, the second CFA revealed that dimensions of CLASS had the highest loadings to three of the theoretical constructs for child-caregiver interaction: Sensitivity/Responsiveness, Positive Regard/Warmth and Joint Attention. However, several of the subscales of the ITERS-R and CC-IT-HOME, as well as the MITRCC showed encouraging associations with theoretical constructs for process quality that were not as strongly captured by CLASS

Invertir en los primeros años de vida: Una prioridad para el BID y los países de América Latina y el Caribe

La importancia de los primeros años para el éxito de las personas durante el resto de su vida se encuentra ampliamente documentada en la literatura. El cerebro humano crece más que en ninguna otra etapa de la vida durante la primera infancia, alcanzando el 80 por ciento del tamaño adulto en los primeros tres años de vida y el 90 por ciento en los primeros cinco años. Las inversiones en la salud, la buena nutrición, el desarrollo cognitivo y el bienestar emocional de los niños durante sus primeros años de vida contribuyen a igualar las oportunidades y por lo tanto, a reducir la marcada desigualdad que caracteriza a la región.Desarrollo social, Jóvenes y niños, Educación en la primera infancia, Cuidado de salud

How Do Crises Affect Schooling Decisions?: Evidence from Changing Labor Market Opportunities and a Policy Experiment

This paper examines the effect of labor market opportunities on schooling and employment decisions in 12 urban areas in Argentina over 12 years, emphasizing the recession/crisis years of 1998-2002. In typical years deteriorating job rates boost the probability of attending school and decrease the probability of combining work and school, particularly for boys; the probability of being in school for secondary school children was about 6% higher in 2002 than in 1998. These estimates reflect a new 1996 Federal Education Law (FEL) that extended mandatory education to 10 years