Publication: Managed Labor Migration in Afghanistan: Institutional Requirements and Policy Processes with and in Afghanistan
Loading...
Published
2018-01
ISSN
Date
2018-01-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
International labor migration is becoming an increasingly important employment strategy for developing countries. However, while increasing mobility creates huge potential increases in global welfare, accessing these gains requires careful management and facilitation of labor flows to avoid low-level equilibria. Sending countries will need to design labor-sending systems that balance increased mobility with protection throughout the entire migration process, while ensuring that supply and demand for specific skills are matched. This note proposes a structure for designing a labor-sending system and applies this structure to an assessment of the existing labor-sending system in Afghanistan, which is currently in very nascent stages and is missing many fundamental elements. It then applies the findings of this assessment to propose a way forward in building Afghanistan’s labor-sending system, along with an estimate of how long it will take for the system to become operational.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Smith, Rebekah. 2018. Managed Labor Migration in Afghanistan: Institutional Requirements and Policy Processes with and in Afghanistan. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29273 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Institutional Requirements and Policy Processes for Establishing Managed Migration with and in Afghanistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-07-01)International labor migration is becoming an increasingly important employment strategy for developing countries. However, while increasing mobility creates huge potential increases in global welfare, accessing these gains requires careful management and facilitation of labor flows to avoid low-level equilibria. Sending countries will need to design labor-sending systems that balance increased mobility with protection throughout the entire migration process, while ensuring that supply and demand for specific skills are matched. This note proposes a structure for designing a labor-sending system and applies this structure to an assessment of the existing labor-sending system in Afghanistan, which is currently in very nascent stages and is missing many fundamental elements. It then applies the findings of this assessment to propose a way forward in building Afghanistan’s labor-sending system, along with an estimate of how long it will take for the system to become operational.Publication Toward an Objective-Driven System of Smart Labor Migration Management(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-12)This policy note offers motivation and a game plan for achieving a coherent and mutually beneficial labor migration system. It argues that migrant workers may make important contributions to economic growth and development in both sending and receiving countries if they find enabling conditions. To achieve a potential win-win-win situation requires: (1) a sustainable migration management system that takes into account the interests of the various stakeholders involved; (2) a clear identification and articulation of objectives and interests in migration by key stakeholders, based on a common conceptual framework for migration and development; (3) regional and bilateral coordination mechanisms to balance these (potentially divergent) objectives and to reach compromise under labor agreements and policies; and (4) effective, evidence-based polices and public and private sector interventions to achieve the objectives that are known and applied at the levels of sending, receiving, returning, and circulating.Publication Managed Labor Migration in Afghanistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-01)This paper analyzes Afghanistan’s migration phenomenon from a microeconomic perspective. Given the elevated pressures in the labor market, a common tool to sustain livelihoods is migration, affecting 16 percent of Afghan households, both current migrants and returnees. Compared to nonmigrants, returnees are more educated and have higher earnings, while the opposite is true for out-migrants. For most of them, remittances represent a supplement to their income, particularly for those families that currently have a member abroad. Comparing earnings of Afghans abroad to those of similar workers in Afghanistan, wide wage gaps are observed, creating strong pull factors for migration. A strong self-selection of migrants also occurs across countries. Overall, migration represents an opportunity to improve livelihoods, although under its current form it does not incentivize upskilling, as most irregular Afghans find jobs in neighboring countries like Iran in low-skilled sectors where returns to education are low.Publication Managed Labor Migration in Afghanistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-01)Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations in Asia, creating strong demographic pressure in the labor market. Around 400,000 youth will continue to enter the labor force annually during the next years. Given the significant slowdown the country’s economic activity, the pace at which jobs are generated is and will be insufficient. Through an analysis of labor supply and demand, thispaper estimates substantial net emigration pressures for the years 2016–2030, on the order of around 200,000 people per year. The projected profile of future migrants is one of young men with some basic level of education and from middle-income households. In addition to this economic migration, other factors like increased insecurity, conflict, and natural disasters might further accentuate these dynamics.Publication Managed Labor Migration in Afghanistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-01)This paper presents key findings on the international experience with migration, focusing on the implications for a developing nation that is a country of origin. The paper identifies several areas of impacts: (1) increases in wages of individual migrants; (2) remittances; (3) impacts on skills and skill formation – those leaving acquire skills to enhance ability to migrate, and those returning often do so with acquired skills and work experience. Additional impacts also arise on the macroeconomy and on growth of the economy through channels like the use of remittances as collateral, and trade identification and facilitation through migrants. The paper explores the different migration regimes along the spectrum of two polar cases of purely managed and purely unmanaged migration, and focuses on two possible aspects of managed migration: (1) migrants’ social networks, which amplify and propagate the initial actions on migration by the managed systems; and (2) skills and certification systems typically associated with managed systems.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.