Let’s begin with an awesome trio of regional, country and state-level assessments of social protection responses to the pandemic! Proceeding in that order, ILO’s regional report on Western Balkans and Eastern Europe revealed gaps in existing social protection systems across 7 countries. Here programs covered contributing formal workers relatively well, but insufficiently so “… workers in the informal economy and those in the non-standard forms of employment”, as well as migrants. Overall, measures were often temporary or provided on a one-off basis, and “… affected the long-term sustainability of the social security systems, in particular already fragile pension systems”. See in particular p.30-32 for a breakdown of responses by programs, and the discussion on financing (p.33-35).
The second paper by Vieira et al provides a vivid account of Mozambique’s social protection response: among my favorite parts, see p.17 connecting existing and temporary interventions, p.19 examining the extension of coverage to informal sector workers, and lessons learned on p.22, e.g., check this one “… the creation, from the moment the health crisis was identified, of a coordination mechanism between partners and the Government specifically to respond to the emergency – the TAG Covid-19 – allowed the coordination of advocacy, technical assistance, fund-raising, as well as the joint elaboration and approval of the Covid-19 Social Protection Response Plan in just 3 months” (I also liked p.10 for a visual on dentification and verification processes, and the discussion on delivery technology on p.22).
The third and final paper evaluates people’s access to main social assistance programs in India’s state of Bihar: Sarin et al found that only 11% of the poorest (and 2% of the rich) households participated in NREGA public works; 46% of them accessed PDS food subsidies (the rate is about 50% for better-off households); and 56% received the three cash transfer injections via Jan Dhan accounts. The study also showed that household with migrants were more likely to reduce food intake and display deteriorating mental wellbeing (even as they reported higher incomes than non-migrant households).
Speaking of wellbeing, a fascinating paper by Gassmann et al explores how social assistance affects subjective welfare in Kyrgyzstan: using two rounds of the Life in Kyrgyzstan survey, they found that participation in social assistance reduces life satisfaction by 0.24 points. Why? One reason relates to targeting and demographics: “… younger people are (…) more likely to feel stigma and shame given the poverty targeting approach adopted in post-Soviet Union societies” (or those “… who grew up in a new society where needing help is ultimately the responsibility of the individual citizen”). Another reason is trust in institutions: “… if trust in local officials is low, benefit receipt leads to lower subjective well-being, possibly indicating a dissatisfaction with the process”. (BTW, I really liked the brief historical review on p.5-7).
From dissatisfaction to inclusion: a blog by Murthi and Rutkowski lays out 3 lessons on economic inclusion programs and their role in reducing poverty, build human capital, and supporting an inclusive green recovery. Bonus on “cash plus” interventions: the Transfer Project has made data for Ghana’s LEAP1000 program publicly available (LEAP1000 provides cash and health insurance to disadvantaged households with children up to 3 years).
Since I mentioned children, there is a massive surge in interest around child benefits. New evidence from Canada provides further data points: Baker et al show that in Canada, the 2015 expansion of the Universal Child Care Benefit and the 2016 introduction of the Child Benefit reduced poverty by 10-12%, with no evidence (positive or negative) on labor supply of single or married women. Bonus: check out UNICEF’s ORI brief with main messages and 7 recommendations for strengthening social protection to families with children in high-income settings.
More on social protection in advanced economies: comparing Denmark and the United States’ systems, Heckman and Landersø consider the former “… a laboratory for understanding the origins of inequality and social immobility because its generous provision of social services does not eliminate inequality”.
More on the US, where cash transfers reduced violence! Using a large dataset of daily domestic violence calls from 31 police departments, Erten et al showed that CARES Act stimulus payments reduced police calls for domestic violence (which remained high among those facing barriers in accessing benefits) (h/t Eeshani Kandpal).
Let’s explore labor and skills materials (h/t Michael Weber)! Does labor market flexibility increase social protection spending? Mina’s estimates from 44 advanced and emerging economies show that linking pay to productivity, wage flexibility, and redundancy costs reduce social protection expenditures, while the ease of hiring and firing increases them.
Why do people move to towns instead of cities? Using an 18-year panel from Tanzania, De Weerdt et address the question of migrants moving to seemingly suboptimal destinations: their results reveal that longer distance to cities (compared to towns) largely trumps the attraction from their promise of greater wealth, making towns more appealing locations. Bonus on urban ares: WIEGO’s Informal Economy Podcast: social protection features Alfers and Rogan discussing their findings of a longitudinal qualitative research with informal workers undertaken in 12 cities (the discussion draws from a global survey of informal workers, with resources available in the project page) (h/t Cyrus Afshar).
More on migration: a study on 18 OECD countries by Foged et al estimates that labor market institutions may shield native workers from wage consequences of immigration, but exacerbate the impacts on average wages in the economy.
Technology! Rodriguez Castelan et al examine mobile internet adoption among 7 countries in West Africa and show that low levels of household consumption and prices of services are two key constraints, i.e., one standard deviation increase in household monthly expenditures – or about $2/day – is associated with a 6.5 percentage point rise in the probability of adoption (one standard deviation drop in the price of mobile internet services, about $3.6, increases the probability of adoption by 2.4 percentage points).
Mix of interesting articles from the news: Spain will experiment with a four-day/32 hour working week; food insecurity is affecting European youth and students; and the NYT lays out 14 lessons from the pandemic.
Let me conclude with audio options for your workout or free time… I loved Ferguson’s keynote at the PacDev 2021 conference, while a lively, 20-speaker event was held on digital agriculture and new frontiers for food systems.
Have a great weekend!