Publication: Moldova Poverty Assessment 2016: A Jobs Diagnostic for Moldova - 10 Key Facts
Loading...
Date
2016-12
ISSN
Published
2016-12
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Moldova has experienced rapid growth and increases in living standards in the past decade. The economy has grown by an average 5 percent a year in the past 15 years, while the national poverty rate declined from 26 percent in 2007 to 11 percent in 2014; there are sharp declines observed in the early 2000s as well. However, Moldova’s growth model has relied on remittances, with limited job creation. The World Bank (2016) report Moldova: Paths to Sustained Prosperity finds that Moldova’s growth model triggered a cycle in which men and women migrated in search of better economic opportunities and sent remittances home that continued to support consumption-driven growth, and that this contributed to poverty reduction and welfare improvement among the less well off, particularly those in rural areas. The 10 facts presented in the note are as follows: fact one: job losses are increasing overall, with productivity-driven economic growth since the 2000s benefitting a smaller number of people who were able to find jobs; fact two: workers left agriculture and industry for services, but the 2009 global crisis dampened the job prospects in services; fact three: out-migration means that Moldova failed to fully capture a demographic dividend for the economy, and is now an aging country; fact four: employment and wage patterns show that job outcomes are becoming less inclusive; fact five: despite their rising educational attainments, young people face significant challenges finding non-farm jobs; fact six: as inequality in earnings widens, post-secondary education still earns more, but is becoming less of a guarantee of a better job; fact seven: efficient firms are raising their productivity by shedding jobs, not creating them, while firm entry and survival rates are low; fact eight: the most productive firms (small, young, foreign, and private) firms have the most productive jobs, but they are not increasing their share in employment; fact nine: while productivity is increasing, a growing share of jobs is in less-productive firms; fact ten: firms providing employment are typically larger and older, while younger firms are struggling, and fewer new firms have been launched since the crisis. It is key to continue monitoring these trends over time and, after the release of the 2014 census data, the labor market and demographic challenges that the country faces will need to be revisited to reflect a more current picture of the situation and the prospects.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2016. Moldova Poverty Assessment 2016: A Jobs Diagnostic for Moldova - 10 Key Facts. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26041 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication The Uganda Poverty Assessment Report 2016(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09)Uganda’s progress in reducing poverty from 1993 to 2006 is a remarkable story of success that has been well told. The narrative of Uganda’s continued, albeit it slightly slower, progress in reducing poverty since 2006 is less familiar. This was a period in which growth slowed as the gains from reforms years earlier had been fully realized, and weak infrastructure and increasing corruption increasingly constrained private sector competitiveness (World Bank 2015). This report examines Uganda’s progress in reducing poverty, with a specific focus on the period 2006 to 2013. The report shows that high growth from 2006 to 2010 benefited poverty reduction. Before turning in further detail to the key findings of the report, it is important to note that the analysis undertaken in this report is only possible because the Government of Uganda has invested in a high quality series of household surveys to document progress in wellbeing since 1993. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics has conducted high-quality household surveys that every three to four years that have provided a comparable series of data on poverty and other household characteristics for the last twenty years. Uganda is one of the few countries in the region to have achieved this level of comparable, frequent poverty monitoring over time. Without this, it would not be possible to document the lessons Uganda provides.Publication Recession, Recovery and Poverty in Moldova(Washington, DC, 2004-11)Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova faced the deepest and most prolonged recession among transition countries, and the resulting increase in poverty has made it the poorest country in Europe today. The main objective of this report is to update and assess poverty in Moldova in its multiple dimensions, with a view to informing public policies. It focuses on the period of recession that followed the Russian crisis and the subsequent recovery. It draws mainly on the Household Budget Surveys, collected quarterly by the Department of Statistics and Sociology, between 1997 and 2002, although the analysis is supplemented as needed by information from other surveys collected by Moldova's Department of Statistic s and Sociology, from administrative data sources, from existing qualitative studies, and from studies by local researchers and other donor organizations. It should be noted that the HBS is a population based survey. By providing detailed information on the consumption of households, it permits an analysis of income (consumption) based welfare. In addition, by providing information on those who do not use public services or programs, in addition to those who do, it provides additional value to administrative data in the analysis of non-income dimensions of poverty such as access to health care or education. As such, the distribution of users of public services such as health care services (for example by rural and urban location) is likely to be different from that obtained from administrative data (typically based on information from facilities). Finally, due to data limitations, the analysis focuses on the Right Bank of Moldova.Publication Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity in Moldova(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-05)Moldova has experienced rapid economic growth in the past decade, which has been accompanied by reductions in poverty and good performance in shared prosperity. Nonetheless, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe and faces challenges in sustaining the progress. The challenges for progress include spatial and cross-group inequalities, particularly because of unequal access to assets, services and economic opportunities. Moreover, strengthening the persistently weak labor markets to boost employment, especially in the nonfarm sectors, is critical for sustaining progress toward the twin goals of reducing poverty and expanding shared prosperity and for addressing the problems associated with an aging population in a fiscally responsible manner. Accordingly, ensuring the viability of the pension system and improving social assistance are necessary areas of reform, particularly in a context of fiscal pressures, the aging population, and the great vulnerability of the poor to shocks. The Moldova poverty assessment 2016 includes three prongs of analysis: this report, which explores trends and the drivers of poverty and shared prosperity, and the accompanying analyses, ‘a jobs diagnostic for Moldova’ and ‘structural transformation of Moldovan small-holder agriculture and its poverty and shared prosperity impacts.’ The jobs diagnostic explores the main labor demand and supply challenges in Moldova in more detail, while the analysis of structural transformation focuses on the agricultural sector and whether it can become a driver of progress.Publication Kenya Gender and Poverty Assessment 2015-2016(World Bank, Nairobi, 2018-09-16)Following ten years of relatively robust economic growth, Kenya achieved lower-middle-income country status in 2014. The remarkable expansion of telecommunications and mobile financial services shifted Kenya’s economic paradigm to an extent rarely seen in developing countries. Poverty rates declined over the period but remain high by the standards of lower-middle-income countries. Due to the agricultural sector’s heavy dependence on rainfall, poverty reduction accelerated during years of good weather and slowed during years of drought. This report is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the drivers of economic growth in Kenya, along with their fiscal implications. Chapter 2 describes Kenya’s progress in reducing monetary poverty between 2005-2016 and 2015-2016. Chapter 3 presents a synthesis of gender and poverty dynamics in Kenya. Chapter 4 analyzes rural livelihoods and explores various factors that may have contributed to or hindered the observed decline in rural poverty over the past decade. Chapter 5 examines the linkages between urbanization and poverty, with a focus on the challenges faced by the urban poor. Chapter 6 analyzes recent developments in Kenya’s education sector, along with their poverty and equity implications. Chapter 7 analyzes public health indicators and explores trends in health outcomes, service utilization, and health equity. Chapter 8 examines changes in the household vulnerability profile between 2005-2006 and 2015-2016.Publication Bangladesh - Poverty Assessment : Assessing a Decade of Progress in Reducing Poverty, 2000-2010(World Bank, Dhaka, 2013-06)The purpose of this report is to document some of the aforementioned achievements over the 2000-2010 decade and to illustrate their collective impact on poverty in Bangladesh. Analysis is undertaken to identify which factors contributed to the rapid decline in poverty over time. The main limitation of this report is that the analysis is based on a limited number of data sources, which do not cover all aspects of the poverty reduction process. Nevertheless, to the extent possible, the analysis covers the key drivers of poverty reduction over what has been a remarkable decade for Bangladesh. The report is organized into four parts. Part one focuses on explaining poverty patterns observed over the 2000-2010 period, noting qualitative differences between the first and second half of the decade. The analysis in chapter one offers poverty projections based on survey data from this period. Chapter two describes some key characteristics of the poor. Using poverty decomposition methodology, part two identifies the main drivers of the poverty reduction experienced over the last decade. Chapter three shows that the two most important contributors to poverty reduction over the 2000-2010 periods were the growth of labor income and the declining dependency ratio. The remaining two chapters in this section focus on labor income and demographic factors to understand their respective linkages to poverty. The past few years have underscored the importance of global factors affecting country-level outcomes. However, the series of shocks that affected Bangladesh in 2007-2008 did not significantly slow down the speed of poverty reduction. In Chapters six and seven of part three, the report attempts to uncover some of the reasons underlying Bangladesh's resilience to these global shocks as well as the way in which poor households cope with seasonal shocks, which are a permanent feature of some rural parts of the country, namely Rangpur. Chapters eight and nine explore the role of safety nets and microfinance in helping households deal with shocks and poverty. In part four, chapter ten revisits one of the key findings of the World Bank poverty assessment of 2005 (published in 2008).
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.