Honorati, Maddalena

Person:
Honorati, Maddalena

Global Practice on Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank

Author Name Variants

Honorati, Maddalena

Fields of Specialization

Development economics, Applied microeconomics

Departments

Global Practice on Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank

Last updated: August 28, 2024

Biography

Maddalena Honorati is a senior economist at the Social Protection and Labor Department in the World Bank which she joined in 2005. Maddalena holds a PhD in Economics from Bocconi University and an M.Sc. from Pompeu Fabra University. Before joining the Social Protection team in 2009, she worked for the Development Research Group at the World Bank on firm productivity, determinants of informality and the impact of investment climate regulations on firm performance. Recently, her research interest has focused on the design and evaluation of social safety nets and active labor market programs in developing countries as well as the measurement of social protection system performance. She authored global, regional and country reports on social safety nets and jobs diagnostics, research papers on labor market issues including policies to foster skills and employability and promote entrepreneurship as well as supported operational implementation of such programs and policies in developing countries, notably in Ghana, Kenya, Philippines and Ecuador.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 30

Does Climbing the Jobs Ladder Promote Poverty Reduction?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-24) Choi, Yunji; Gronert, Mario; Honorati, Maddalena; Merfeld,, Joshua D,; Newhouse, David
This paper explores trends in and the potential determinants of the types of jobs held by workers, and their relationship with poverty reduction, in an unbalanced panel of 89 countries over the past 30 years. Jobs are classified into five categories according to formality, occupation or level of skills required, and wage work versus self-employment. Net shifts into "upper tier" or skilled informal wage jobs, defined as professionals, managers, technicians, or clerks, from "lower tier" or lower skilled informal jobs were strongly associated with poverty reduction at the $1.90 and $3.20 lines. In contrast, net shifts into formal wage jobs from lower tier informal jobs were associated with modest poverty reductions at the $5.50 poverty line. The share of workers in informal upper tier jobs represents less than 2 percent of the workforce and has increased little over the past 30 years in low- and middle-income countries. The findings show that increases in upper tier informal wage jobs are associated with shifts of the workforce from microenterprises to small firms in lower- and upper-middle-income countries, but they are not discernibly associated with higher educational attainment or urbanization. In contrast, increases in the share of formal wage jobs are strongly associated with increases in the share of workers with post-secondary education, driven by high-income countries. The results suggest that upper tier informal wage jobs and the skills they require play a potentially important role in poverty reduction but are not automatically generated by increased educational attainment, urbanization, or firm size.
Labor Market Integration of Refugees in Germany: New Lessons After the Ukrainian Crisis
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-02) Honorati, Maddalena; Testaverde, Mauro; Totino, Elisa
Forced displacement has become more frequent in the last decades, with refugees often spending many years abroad. While international responses often focus on immediate needs, investment in refugees’ longer-term integration is increasingly important to support their transition to self-sufficiency. This paper documents the key features of the German integration system and its adaptations following the Ukrainian crisis in the period between December 2022 and August 2023. The emerging evidence suggests that while refugees’ labor market integration in Germany is at first slower than in other EU countries, early investment in refugees’ human capital, especially in language skills, allows access to better jobs in the medium-term. Years of investment in a strong integration eco-system was key to quickly start a process that turns short-term integration costs into long-term economic opportunities.
Investing in Skills to Accelerate Job Transitions
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-28) Honorati, Maddalena; Santos, Indhira; Gomez Tamayo, Sofia
The paper reviews the dynamics of human capital – mostly skills – accumulation and utilization during successful and static episodes of structural transformation in a sample of more than 90 countries over the last thirty years to identify cases when improvements in human capital are not met by skills demand - signaling an unbalance between investment in skills and other factors of production. A framework is proposed to differentiate inefficient skills investments by cases of over- and under-investment relative to skills demand, cases of skills underutilization, even at the right level of investment, and cases of skills mismatches due human capital’s misallocation across geographical areas and field of study. Based on country case studies, the paper examines the different forms of inefficient human capital accumulation and utilization and the potential market and policy failures that lead to such inefficiencies across individuals, firms, and governments. The framework is used to differentiate policy priorities depending on the constraints to efficient human capital accumulation and utilization and the stage of the structural transformation.
Options to Support Workers through a Transition away from Coal in Eastern Wielkopolska (March 2022)
(World Bank, WAshington DC, 2023-05-30) Honorati, Maddalena
The objective of this policy note is to provide an overview of the three draft project proposals and to recommend key design principles and implementation arrangement options for a coordinated outplacement program in the Eastern Wielkopolska region that would provide a package of services to motivate and help affected workers find suitable jobs in alignment with the TJTP. The focus of the note is on interventions supporting the social and labor transition in Eastern Wielkopolska, rather than the economic, spatial, and energy transformations which are also part of the JTM Pillar. Efforts to promote local economic development and environmental rehabilitation of affected subregions as well as to develop stakeholder engagement and public communication strategies are beyond the scope of this note.
Who is Most Vulnerable to the Transition Away from Coal? Ruda Śląska Residents’ Preferences Towards Jobs and Land Repurposing
(World Bank, 2023-05-24) Honorati, Maddalena; Gajderowicz, Tomasz
After Germany, Poland is the EU’s second largest coal producer and consumer.1 96 percent of EU-27 hard coal production, or 54.4 million tons, is extracted in Poland (EURACOAL, 2020). In 2020, over 40 percent of the country’s total energy supply (TES) and 70 percent of its electricity generation come from coal and lignite (IEA, 2022), the highest rate in Europe. Coal in Poland also continues to employ about 88,000 people directly in the mines, down from about 444,000 in 1989. Europe’s commitment to stop its fossil fuel imports from Russia following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is slowing down Poland’s coal phase-out to ensure energy security in Europe,2 but Poland remains committed to a complete coal mine closure by 2049.
Piloting a Machine Learning-Based Job-Matching Algorithm: Summary of Results from Pomerania
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-20) Honorati, Maddalena; Gajderowicz, Tomasz
The objective of this note is to present and discuss the findings of piloting a task-based job matching tool developed by the World Bank and implemented in partnership with the Regional Labor Office of Pomerania, Poland. The aim of the pilot was to assess whether simple ML-based tools could contribute to improve the efficiency of PES delivery and job-seeking behaviors compared to rule-based, knowledge-driven approaches. By combining labor demand data from local occupational barometers and the descriptions of tasks in the national taxonomy of occupations, the tool provides jobseekers a menu of potential jobs available in the local labor markets that match the tasks performed in previous work experiences. Results show that jobseekers were satisfied with the proposed occupations resulting from the tool (as beyond their thinking) and had the intention to expand job search efforts, though job-seeking behaviors could not be monitored. Career advisers recognized that the lack of information on jobseekers’ education, skills, and preferences limited the efficiency of the proposed job matches.
Towards a Just Coal Transition Labor Market Challenges and People’s Perspectives from Wielkopolska
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-10-18) Ferré, Céline; Christiaensen, Luc; Gajderowicz, Tomasz Janusz; Honorati, Maddalena; Wrona, Sylwia Michalina
Part of a three-region set of papers analyzing coal-related labor market challenges in Poland, this paper focuses on Wielkopolska, which is most advanced in the transition out of coal. Finding viable job transitions is of enormous importance. The findings call for a more territorial-oriented approach to brokering the coal transition, rather than a sectoral one. First, even though limited from a regional perspective (4,000 workers), affected jobs are highly concentrated in a few already lagging and depopulating municipalities. Second, while coal-related workers are similarly skilled as other workers in Wielkopolska, non-coal related workers in the at-risk municipalities are substantially less skilled, exposing them to potential displacement effects. Finally, while ready to work and to be re-skilled, discrete choice experiments about their job attribute preferences show that all workers are averse both to commuting and relocating for work, even more so than in Silesia and Lower Silesia. Complementary social protection and employment support will be needed, and the paper suggests some policy options based on international experience. The paper concludes by illustrating how a big-data driven job-matching tool, calibrated on the Polish labor market, could be used to assist caseworkers in identifying “viable-job-transition-pathways” for affected workers as well as to help policymakers identify reskilling needs and attract investments.
Youth Employment in Uzbekistan: Opportunities and Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09) Marguerie, Alicia; Honorati, Maddalena
The objective of the report is to assess and find potential solutions to the challenge’s youth face when transitioning from school to work with a focus on labor market ‘supply side’ reforms that are relevant to improve the employability of youth. We recognize that rural and urban investment climates, regulatory frameworks, taxation systems, overall macro‐economic frameworks, and human capital (education and training policy, basic health) are prerequisites for many interventions on the demand side of the labor market to be successful. The report provides a holistic assessment, including both demand and supply‐side constraints, triangulating findings from available qualitative and quantitative data on youth and employers. It inevitably documents an extensive set of issues. However, it does not aim to assess the broader investment climate and macro context or all firm‐level constraints to job creation as a full job diagnostic would do. The lack of jobs and slow labor demand are found to be major constraints to youth employment, but macro and structural constraints to job creation are not assessed in the report in depth. The scope of the policy recommendations put forth focus on labor market reforms that could improve the employability of youth and are meant to complement recommendations on a broader set of macro and business environment reforms aimed at enabling private firms to start up, grow, and create jobs. Until major constraints to labor demand are addressed and job creation picks up, the recommendations presented in the report will remain necessary but will not be sufficient to address the youth employment challenge.
Early Childhood Development Services in Armenia: Diagnostic Report
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08-28) Ayliffe, Tamsin; Honorati, Maddalena; Zumaeta, Melissa
This report assesses the key constraints on the supply of (quantity and quality) and demand for early childhood development (ECD) services for pregnant women and children under the age of five in Armenia and puts forth recommendations on how to improve access to ECD services for poor and socially vulnerable families. The government of the Republic of Armenia, with support from the World Bank and other development partners, is currently expanding the existing social work system in Armenia to more actively link vulnerable families to ECD services. A specific objective of the report is to inform the design of this expansion. The World Bank team carried out a survey of ECD services providers in the four marzes of Ararat, Gegharkunik, Lori and Yerevan. The report draws heavily on the findings of this facility survey, the Integrated Living Conditions Survey (ILCS) 2017,3 the Social Snapshot and Poverty in Armenia, the Armenia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015-16 (NSS 2017), and on other ECD-related studies conducted in Armenia. The report’s assessment and recommendations are also grounded in global evidence on ECD. This evidence highlights the importance to human development of receiving nurturing care in the early years. There is robust evidence that early experiences shape the brain’s structure and functioning, and that deprivations during the prenatal period and early childhood can have substantial negative impacts on later cognitive ability and educational achievement. Early childhood development services that promote nurturing care during this period are cost effective, and programs for disadvantaged children during early childhood have a higher rate of return than programs introduced later in life. Services with proven benefits to ECD include antenatal care, promotion of child nutrition and micronutrient supplementation, parenting education, and preschool education. Global evidence points to specific interventions in each area that have proven impact.
Assessing the Vulnerability of Armenian Temporary Labor Migrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07) Yi, Soonhwa; Honorati, Maddalena; Choi, Thelma
This paper attempts to assess the vulnerability of Armenian temporary international labor migrants and their families to the labor market challenges posed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The authors estimate that about fifty percent of temporary labor migrants might have been unable to leave for Russia owing to travel restrictions. Many Armenian migrants in Russia are likely to lose jobs because of some halts in construction activities. Prospective migrants who were unable to leave Armenia are more likely to be jobless based on the employment status they had prior to departing for Russia. This would result in reducing remittances and exposing remittance-dependent households to precarious situations. Targeted policies to address this new vulnerable group are called for.