Person:
Raju, Dhushyanth
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Education,
Health,
Nutrition,
Labor,
Poverty,
Risk
Degrees
ORCID
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Departments
Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
September 15, 2023
Publication Search Results
1 - 4 of 4
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Publication
Youth Employment in Nepal
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-06-22)Promoting the smooth labor market integration and early labor market success of workers has increasingly become an important economic and social development aim globally. The Nepal government sees addressing the social and economic challenges of youth, and leveraging their social and economic prospects, as critical for the country’s economic growth and development. There has been limited systematic, policy-oriented empirical research conducted on labor and livelihoods in Nepal. Dedicated examinations of the labor conditions, behaviors, and outcomes of youth are rarer still. Responding to the knowledge needs expressed by the Nepal government and other stakeholders in the country, this book aims to improve our understanding of the labor market conditions, behaviors, and outcomes of Nepalese youth. It examines these aspects in Nepal’s domestic labor market as well as in relation to labor migration to India and other countries, including temporary 'foreign employment' of Nepalese workers under bilateral labor agreements between destination countries and Nepal. In so doing, the report seeks to present insights and implications for research and public policy, with the goal of improving the labor market prospects of Nepalese youth. The collective findings in the report point to three directions for orienting public policy and program initiatives. First is raising rural labor productivity, urban labor demand, and urban worker–job matching efficiency. Second is supporting the labor market integration of rural youth migrating to urban parts of Nepal and of youth labor migrants returning from India and other countries. Third is improving the orientation and efficacy of labor skill training. -
Publication
Feeding of Infants and Young Children in South Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11)Poor breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices predict child stunting and wasting in South Asia, suggesting that initiatives to end undernutrition in the region should focus on improving the diets of young children. This review of the literature finds that South Asia has made relatively good progress in improving breastfeeding practices compared with other regions, but the lack of diversity in complementary foods and low frequency of feeding continue to be problems. Children who are most at risk of experiencing poor feeding include those who are born small, have younger mothers, and live in poorer households or in communities with less access to, or lower uptake of, primary health services. Initiatives to improve feeding practices have not produced substantial improvement, particularly in complementary feeding, because such efforts have lacked the coverage, intensity, comprehensiveness, and continuity needed. Policy, legal, and program actions to protect, promote, and support recommended feeding practices should be informed by situation analyses and formative research on context-specific drivers of poor practices. The actions should involve multiple sectors and stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, communities, and households. -
Publication
Effects over the Life of a Program: Evidence from an Education Conditional Cash Transfer Program for Girls
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12)While most evaluations of education programs in developing countries examine effects one or two years after a program has been introduced, this study does so over an extended duration of a program. Administered in Punjab, Pakistan, the program offers cash benefits to households conditional on girls' regular attendance in secondary grades in government schools. The study evaluates the evolution of the program's effects on girls' secondary school enrollment numbers over roughly a decade of its existence. The program was targeted to districts with low adult literacy rates, a targeting mechanism that provides an observed, numerical program assignment variable and results in a cutoff value. Recent advances in regression discontinuity designs allow the study to appropriately fit key features of the data. The study finds that the program had positive effects on girls’ secondary school enrollment numbers throughout the period and that these effects were stable. This pattern is observed despite a loss of more than 60 percent in the real value of the cash benefit over the period. The findings are consistent with potential behavioral explanations, such as the program making girls' education salient to households or catalyzing a shift in social norms around girls' education. -
Publication
Cities, Slums, and Early Child Growth: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06)This study uses novel household survey data that are representative of Bangladesh's large cities, and of slum and nonslum areas within the cities, to investigate the effects of demographic and socioeconomic factors on early child growth in 2013. The study also decomposes the difference in mean child growth between slum and nonslum areas in 2013, and the increase in mean child growth in slum and nonslum areas from 2006 to 2013. Mother's education attainment and household wealth largely explain the cross-sectional difference and intertemporal change in child growth. Although positive in some cases, the effects of maternal and child health services, and potential health-protective household amenities, differ by the type of health facility, household amenity, and urban area. The results suggest that a focus on nutrition-sensitive programs for slum residents and the urban poor is appropriate.