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Sánchez Puerta, Maria Laura

Global Practice on Social Protection and Labor
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Global Practice on Social Protection and Labor
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Maria Laura Sanchez Puerta is a senior economist in the Jobs Group of the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice at the World Bank, where she specializes on the intersection of labor and development economics. She currently leads the jobs and skills agenda and co-leads the global STEP initiative including household and employer surveys measuring adult skills in 17 countries. She prepared one of the first Job Diagnostics at the country level and contributed to an innovative, multi-sector work program on jobs in Kenya. Maria Laura’s research includes cognitive and non-cognitive skills and labor outcomes; design, implementation, and evaluation of active labor market programs; income mobility in Latin America; informality and labor market segmentation; and the effects of globalization on working conditions. Maria Laura has also supported analytical and operational work in Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Rwanda and Tunisia. She holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University and joined IZA as a Research Fellow in 2007.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Do Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills Explain the Gender Wage Gap in Middle-Income Countries?: An Analysis Using STEP Data
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-11) Tognatta, Namrata; Valerio, Alexandria; Sanchez Puerta, Maria Laura
    Gender-based wage discrimination is a highly researched area of labor economics. However, most studies on this topic have focused on schooling and paid limited attention to the mechanisms through which cognitive and noncognitive skills influence wages. This paper uses data from adults in seven low- and middle-income countries that participated in the STEP Skills Measurement Survey to conduct a comparative analysis of gender wage gaps. The paper uses schooling and skills measures, including reading proficiency and complexity of on-the-job computer tasks to proxy cognitive skills, and personality and behavioral measures to proxy for noncognitive skills in wage decompositions. The analysis finds that years of school explain most of the gender wage gap. The findings also suggest that cognitive and noncognitive skills affect men’s and women’s earnings in different ways, and that the effects of these skills vary across the wage distribution and between countries.
  • Publication
    Kenya: Capturing Skills Requirements and Assessing Skills Gaps in the Modern Economy
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05-01) Sanchez Puerta, Maria Laura; Rizvi, Anam
    In Kenya, skills constraints are reported to have a detrimental impact on job creation and labor market outcomes. Employers have reported concerns with the level and relevance of a broad set of socio-emotional skills and cognitive skills amongst job applicants and recently hired workers. These skill gaps affect firms' competitiveness (ability to grow and create more jobs), as well as productivity (better wages). Evidence of job dissatisfaction on both the demand and supply side suggests that workers are not being matched with the right jobs. Three policy implication are derived from these results. First, worker mobility and resilience to new challenges requires the continuous upgrading of skills through on-the-job and other training opportunities. Second, with the projected population growth rate (for young people) there is an urgent need to foster high productivity jobs, as well as jobs that are inclusive (to vulnerable populations). Third, in order to address the skills mismatch, comprehensive labor market information is needed to guide students and jobseekers by providing unemployment data, job vacancies and the level of wages by occupation type.