C. Journal articles published externally
2,064 items available
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These are journal articles by World Bank authors published externally.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, is a diverse ...
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Publication
Factors Associated with Educational and Career Aspirations of Young Women and Girls in Sierra Leone
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-09-05)Empirical data on the aspirations of young women and girls in post-conflict settings are scarce. This article analyses the factors associated with the educational and career aspirations of 2,473 young women and girls in Sierra Leone. Findings indicated that over three-quarters of our sample aspired to continue their studies up to the university level, and two-thirds aspired to obtain a formal sector job requiring an education. These findings are important for discussions of aid which can accelerate economic advances and opportunities within advanced economies for both women and men. -
Publication
Assessing Gender Gaps in Employment and Earnings in Africa: The Case of Eswatini
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-07)Persistent gender gaps characterize labor markets in many African countries. Utilizing Eswatini’s first three labor market surveys (conducted in 2007, 2010, and 2013), this paper provides first systematic evidence on the country’s gender gaps in employment and earnings. We find that women have notably lower employment rates and earnings than men, even though the global financial crisis had a less negative impact on women than it had on men. Both unadjusted and unexplained gender earnings gaps are higher in self-employment than in wage employment. Tertiary education and urban location account for a large part of the gender earnings gap and mitigate high female propensity to self-employment. Our findings suggest that policies supporting female higher education and rural-urban mobility could reduce persistent inequalities in Eswatini’s labor market outcomes as well as in other middle-income countries in southern Africa. -
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Competing Priorities: Women’s Microenterprises and Household Relationships
(Elsevier, 2019-09)Recent studies have suggested that women’s business decisions are influenced by members of their household, especially their spouse, and that these intrahousehold dynamics contribute to gender gaps in entrepreneurship outcomes. This in-depth qualitative study among microentrepreneurs in urban Ghana sought to understand the connections between women’s businesses and their households’ management of economic resources. The findings show that women’s business decisions are influenced by: 1) a desire to reinforce their partner’s responsibilities as a primary provider; 2) attempts to fulfil normative expectations of meeting the daily basic-needs of the family; and 3) a need to prepare for long-term security. To reinforce their husband’s responsibilities as a provider, women hid income and savings, and sometimes explicitly limited business growth. To ensure their ability to smooth household consumption and respond to emergencies, women prioritized savings over business investment. And, to plan for their long-term security, women opted for cautious business investment, instead maintaining pressure on their partner to meet current needs and investing in children and property for the future. Previous studies document gender differences in microenterprise business management. This research builds on those studies by examining how intrahousehold inequalities affect women’s business decisions. The findings demonstrate the contextual importance of social relations for understanding women’s business decisions. More broadly, the findings illustrate that interpersonal interactions concerning the management of economic resources are an integral part of how household members negotiate their rights and responsibilities in relation to each other. -
Publication
Gendered Incidence and Impact of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System
(Taylor and Francis, 2019)Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provide an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land but is also associated with a productivity loss of 12 per cent for female operators, equivalent to US$ 14 million per year at the national level, enough to pay for a nation-wide tenure regularization program in two to three years. -
Publication
Gender-transformative Bandebereho Couples' Intervention to Promote Male Engagement in Reproductive and Maternal Health and Violence Prevention in Rwanda: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial
(PLoS, 2018-04-04)Rigorous evidence of the effectiveness of male engagement interventions, particularly on how these interventions impact relationship power dynamics and women’s decision-making, remains limited. This study assessed the impact of the Bandebereho gender-transformative couples’ intervention on impact on multiple behavioral and health-related outcomes influenced by gender norms and power relations. We conducted a multi-site randomised controlled trial in four Rwandan districts with expectant/current fathers and their partners, who were randomised to the intervention (n = 575 couples) or control group (n = 624 couples). Primary outcomes include women’s experience of physical and sexual IPV, women’s attendance and men’s accompaniment at ANC, modern contraceptive use, and partner support during pregnancy. At 21-months post-baseline, 1123 men and 1162 partners were included in intention to treat analysis. Generalized estimating equations with robust standard errors were used to fit the models. -
Publication
As Good as the Networks They Keep?: Improving Outcomes through Weak Ties in Rural Uganda
(The University of Chicago Press, 2018-04)We examine an intervention randomized at the village level in which female farmers invited to a single training session were randomly paired with farmers whom they did not know and encouraged to share new agricultural information throughout the growing season for a recently adopted cash crop. We show that the intervention signi ficantly increased the productivity of all farmers except of those who were already in the highest quintile of productivity, and that there were signifi cant spillovers in productivity to male farmers. -
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Effects of Exposure to an Intensive HIV-prevention Programme on Behavioural Changes among Female Sex Workers in Nairobi, Kenya
(Taylor and Francis, 2018-03-08)While Kenya has had a long-standing national HIV-prevention program, evidence on the level of exposure to its interventions and related effects on behavioral changes among female sex workers (FSWs) is limited. Using cross-sectional behavioral data collected in 2013 from 1 357 FSWs aged 18 years and above in Nairobi, Kenya, this study explores the relationship between FSW program exposure levels and behavioral outcomes including condom use, sexually transmitted infection (STI)-treatment, and empowerment measures like disclosure of self-identity and violence reporting. We categorized program exposure levels as none, moderate and intensive. Multivariate logistic regression was used for analysis. Overall, 35% of the FSWs were not exposed to any HIV prevention program, whereas about 24% had moderate and 41% had intensive exposure. FSWs having intensive program exposure had a higher likelihood of using condoms consistently with occasional clients (AOR: 1.57; 95% CI: 1.08–2.31) and seeking treatment for STIs (AOR: 3.37; 95% CI: 1.63–7.02) compared to FSWs with no or moderate exposure. Intensive program exposure was also associated with higher self-disclosure of sex-work identity (AOR: 1.63; 95% CI: 1.19–2.24), reporting of violence to police (AOR: 2.45; 95% CI: 1.03–5.84), and negotiation of condom use at last sex when the client was under the influence of alcohol (AOR: 1.63; 95% CI: 0.94–2.82). Although HIV prevention programs in Kenya have been underway for over a decade, program efforts were largely focused on saturating the coverage (intervention breadth). Strategies should now focus on ensuring improved quality of contacts through intensified program exposure (intervention depth) to enhance gains in behavioral change among FSWs and preventing the burden of HIV infection among them. -
Publication
Competition or Cooperation?: Using Team and Tournament Incentives for Learning among Female Farmers in Rural Uganda
(Elsevier, 2018-03)This study explores the behavioral learning characteristics of smallholder female farmers in Uganda by quantifying the amount of information learned under different incentive schemes. The paper shows how competitive versus team incentives compare in motivating Ugandan farmers to learn and share information relevant to adopting a new agricultural technology. We find that tournament-based incentives provide greater outcomes in terms of total information learned than threshold-based team incentives. Furthermore the order of the incentive – whether the tournament precedes or follows the team incentive scheme – does not affect the volume of information learned. New information introduced between rounds was learned by more individuals under team incentives than under tournament incentives. The study provides direct practical policy recommendations for improving learning in the context of agriculture in Uganda. -
Publication
Formalization without Certification?: Experimental Evidence on Property Rights and Investment
(Elsevier, 2018-01-03)We present evidence from the first large-scale randomized-controlled trial of a land formalization program. We examine the link between land demarcation and investment in rural Benin in light of a model of agricultural production under insecure tenure. The demarcation process involved communities in the mapping and attribution of land rights; cornerstones marked parcel boundaries and offered lasting landmarks. The tenure security improvement through demarcation induces a 23 to 43 percent shift toward long-term investment on treated parcels. We explore gender and parcel location as relevant dimensions of heterogeneity. We find that female-managed landholdings in treated villages are more likely to be left fallow—an important soil fertility investment. Women respond to an exogenous tenure security change by shifting investment away from relatively secure, demarcated land and toward less secure land outside the village to guard those parcels. -
Publication
Education Budget Savings from Ending Child Marriage and Early Childbirths: The Case of Niger
(Taylor and Francis, 2018)Ending child marriage and early childbirths would reduce total fertility rates and population growth especially in countries with a high incidence of child marriage, early childbirths, or both. Savings for public budgets could be large. This article relies on demographic projections and a UNESCO costing model for the provision of education by governments to estimate savings that could result from ending child marriage and early childbirths for public education budgets. The analysis is conducted for Niger, the country with the highest rate of child marriage in the world.