Person:
Troiano, Sara

Global Practice for Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank
Profile Picture
Author Name Variants
Troiano, Sara, Troiano, S.
Fields of Specialization
Employment, Social protection, Targeting instruments, Population dynamics
Degrees
ORCID
Departments
Global Practice for Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated:April 20, 2023
Biography
Sara, an Italian national, holds an MSc in Internationational Trade, Finance and Development from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, and a Bachelor in International Economics from Bocconi University. Her recent work has focused on Labor Market and Employment Policies, Social Assistance Programs (with special attention to Targeting Instruments), Demography, Public Spending, in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. She currently works as a consultant for the World Bank, and is a MSc candidate in Sociology and Demography at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.

Filters

2020 - 202612000 - 20193
Reset filters

Settings

Statistics
Citations

Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Childcare Arrangements for Low-Income Families: Evidence from Low and Middle-Income Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-12) Currimjee, Alisa; Lima, Jem Heinzel-Nelson Alvarenga; Troiano, Sara
    This study reviews options of childcare and early learning arrangements in developing countries, focusing on innovative options for public and nonstate provision that fit the needs and constraints of low-income families. It discusses both home-based care (provided in a home setting) and center-based care (nurseries, crèches, daycares or sometimes preschools) through various country examples and four in-depth case studies (from Colombia, Kenya, India, and Liberia). This comparative analysis shows that a wide range of provision models are leveraged to meet the demand for childcare in low- and middle-income countries and that intentional policy initiatives can promote positive social norms towards early childhood services and women’s economic empowerment. Yet, benefits to children and families depend on the quality of services and the wider enabling environment thy operate in.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Forever Young?: Social Policies for a Changing Population in Southern Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06-26) Bruni, Lucilla Maria; Rigolini, Jamele; Troiano, Sara
    Demography affects our daily lives. Consciously or not, we take into account the demographic context when making choices on employment, savings, health, and education. This report studies how demographic change is likely to affect demand for social services in Southern Africa and how today’s policies can be shaped to reap potential benefits from demographic dynamics and address the population’s evolving needs. The authors define the social sectors as education, health, and social assistance and social policies as policies related to these three sectors. The study illustrates how social policies designed to fit with evolving demographic structures are likely to lead to wealthier and more productive future generations, fostering growth and equity. But the reverse also holds: ill-tailored social policies can hold back countries’ development and heighten intergenerational tensions. The rest of this report is structured as follows. Chapter two presents evidence on demographic trends in Southern Africa. Chapter three explains the report’s conceptual framework and how demography can be an opportunity or a curse, depending on the policy environment. Chapter four studies the five countries’ labor markets and documents challenges that a growing active labor force is likely to generate. Chapter five looks at the likely impacts of changing demographics on social sectors. It shows how a dependency ratio that will remain relatively low for decades to come will provide the opportunity to redirect social spending towards emerging priorities, and identifies which of these priorities will be in education, health, and social assistance. Chapter six concludes the study by discussing immediate policy implications.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    As Time Goes By in Argentina: Economic Opportunities and Challenges of the Demographic Transition
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-04-23) Gragnolati, Michele; Rofman, Rafael; Apella, Ignacio; Troiano, Sara; Grushka, Carlos; Comelatto, Pablo; Maceira, Daniel; Barbieri, María Eugenia; Marchionni, Mariana; Alejo, Javier; Cetrángolo, Oscar; Fanelli, José María
    The process of demographic transition through which Argentina is passing is a window of both opportunities and challenges in economic and social terms. Argentina is still a young country in which the working-age population represents the largest proportion of its total population. Currently, the country just began a 30-year period with the most advantageous age structure of its population, which could favor greater economic growth. This situation, known as the 'demographic window of opportunity,' will last until the beginning of the 2040s. The dynamics of the fertility and mortality rates signify a gradual ageing of the population, with implications for various dimensions of the economy, the social protection system, public policies, and society in general. This book studies the opportunities and challenges that the demographic transition poses for the Argentine economy, its most important social sectors like the healthcare, education, and social protection systems, and the potential fiscal trade-offs that must be dealt with. The study shows that even though Argentina is moving through its demographic transition, it just recently began to enjoy the window of opportunity and this constitutes a great opportunity to achieve an accumulation of capital and future economic growth. Once the window of opportunity has passed, population ageing will have a significant impact on the level of expenditure, especially spending in the social protection system. This signifies a challenge from a fiscal policy point of view, because if long-term reforms are not undertaken to mediate these effects, the demographic transition will put pressure on the reallocation of fiscal resources among social sectors. Finally, population ageing poses concerns related to sustaining the rate of economic growth with a smaller working-age population. Taking advantage of the current window of opportunities, increasing savings that will finance the accumulation of capital, and increasing future labor force productivity in this way is a challenge for the Argentine economy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Understanding the Trends in Learning Outcomes in Argentina, 2000 to 2012
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) de Hoyos, Rafael; Holland, Peter A.; Troiano, Sara
    This paper seeks to understand what drove the trends in learning outcomes in Argentina between 2000 and 2012, using data from four rounds of the Program for International Student Assessment. A year-specific education production function is estimated and its results used to decompose the changes in learning outcomes into changes in inputs, parameters, and residuals via microsimulations. Estimates of the production function show the importance of socioeconomic status, gender, school autonomy, and teacher qualifications to determine learning outcomes. Despite an important increase in the level of resources invested in public education, learning outcomes in public schools decreased vis-à-vis private schools. According to the results presented here, the increase in the number of teachers in the system, pushing the pupil-teacher ratio in Argentina to 11, had no effect on learning outcomes. The microsimulation further confirms that changes in the system’s ability to transform inputs into outcomes accounted for most of the changes in test scores. Overall, the study shows the ineffectiveness of input-based education policies to improve learning outcomes in Argentina.