East Asia and Pacific Gender Policy Briefs
11 items available
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The East Asia and Pacific Gender Innovation Lab (EAPGIL) runs impact evaluations of development interventions in the region, seeking to generate evidence on what works to close gender gaps and how closing gender gaps can help achieve other development outcomes. This Policy Brief series gives short, non-technical summaries with a focus on key findings and policy implications.
Items in this collection
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Publication
Childcare and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Lower-and Middle-Income Countries: A Policy Brief
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-07)Twenty-two studies from lower- and middle-income countries rigorously tested if an increase in access to childcare improved mothers’ labor force participation or earnings. All but one study found at least some positive impact on mothers’ labor force participation and related outcomes resulting from access to care, an increase in care hours, or a reduction in the cost of care. The results of this review are encouraging; childcare can help improve female labor market outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. -
Publication
How to Better Capture Women’s Agency Through Decision-making Measures: Five Tips from Research in the Philippines
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04)Accurately measuring and understanding agency, or one’s ability to make choices and achieve desired outcomes can support the design and targeting of effective development interventions, as well as tracking their impacts. To maximize the effectiveness of development interventions, it is critical to understand women’s agency and how agency may influence the effectiveness of program design. Women’s decision-making in the household is frequently captured in surveys as a proxy for women’s agency. Using new analysis from a spousal survey with farming households in the Philippines, the authors explore which survey questions can accurately capture the difference in agency of women. -
Publication
Gender-Specific Impacts of Road Improvement: What Can Be Done to Ensure that Better Roads Expand Economic Opportunities for All?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03)How and why do the benefits of better transport differ between genders? A non-experimental impact evaluation of a large-scale rural roads project in Vietnam combined with qualitative data collection suggests some possibilities. While roads improve trading opportunities for all households, only households headed by men are able to increase agricultural output and income. Lower levels of household labor and capital in female-headed households seems to constrain their ability to make similar changes. The implications for policy are that coordinating transport investments with complementary development programs can address constraints faced by female-headed and poor households and improve the benefits of better transport for them. -
Publication
Why do Indonesian Men and Women Choose Undocumented Migration? Exploring Gender Differences in Labor Migration Patterns
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10)Migrant workers are a key part of Indonesia’s economy. The equivalent of almost 7 percent of Indonesia’s labor force, an estimated 9 million people, work overseas and in 2016, over IDR 159 trillion (US dollar 11.2 billion) was sent back to Indonesia in the form of remittances. However, undocumented migration increases risk and lowers returns to working abroad. Data from the Indonesia Safe Migration Survey (2018) shows that few migrant workers know the requirements to migrate as documented migrant. Moreover, the risks of undocumented migration appear higher for women with time constraints. -
Publication
Can Community-based Targeting Effectively Select Poorer Beneficiaries for a Large-scale Program? Insights from the LASED Project
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06)An analysis of the Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development Project (LASED) in Cambodia suggests that the project was highly successful in identifying "poor" beneficiaries. In this brief we look into the community-based targeting mechanism used in LASED to understand what design factors contributed to it`s success. -
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Women Farmers in Timor-Leste: Bridging the Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11)Agriculture is the predominant economic activity in Timor-Leste, with more than 80 percent of households engaged in at least minor farming work, with 70 percent of farmers over the age of 401. Despite its leading role in the livelihoods of Timorese households, the agricultural sector has not fulfilled its potential and cereal yields in Timor-Leste are among the lowest in the East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) region. This is a direct barrier in the country’s efforts to achieve its National Development Strategy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. -
Publication
Why Do Indonesian Adolescent Boys Have Poorer Schooling Outcomes than Girls?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11)Indonesian secondary students perform worse academically than their peers in other countries, especially boys. In the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, Indonesia ranked among the worse of the 72 participating countries. More than half of 15-year-olds could read a text but could not answer simple questions related to it; that was only the case of 14 percent of students in high-performing Vietnam and 20 percent in member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). While Indonesian boys and girls had similar average scores in math and science, girls outperformed boys in average scores of reading. -
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Are Mobile Savings the Silver Bullet to Help Women Grow Their Businesses?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09)In Tanzania and Indonesia, we promoted the expansion of mobile savings accounts among women micro-entrepreneurs and provided them with business related training. In doing so, we simultaneously relaxed supply- and demand side constraints to savings that women might face. In both countries, the training enhanced the impact of promoting mobile savings. In Indonesia it led women to save more overall, including a nascent use of mobile accounts, and report greater decision making power within the household. In Tanzania, it led to substantially higher mobile savings, new businesses and products, more capital investment, labor effort, and better business practices. However, these short-term impacts have yet to translate into higher business profits. In Indonesia, we observe increased household welfare, but no discernible effects on business outcomes shortly after the training ended. In Tanzania, the increased business investments were not accompanied by greater profitability. -
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Does Access to Preschool Increase Women’s Employment?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-07)Female labor force participation (FLFP) in Indonesia lags behind other countries in the region. Building on previous work that shows that unmet childcare needs are associated with low FLFP in Indonesia, here, we look at the impact of childcare availability on FLFP. The findings suggest that an additional public preschool per 1,000 children raises the employment of mothers of age-eligible children by 13 percent. -
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Gender Gap in Earnings in Vietnam: Why Do Vietnamese Women Work in Lower Paid Occupations?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)Vietnam has achieved important progress in closing the gender gap in education and increasing women’s labor force participation. However, are women’s labor market opportunities on par with those of men? We analyze the gender earnings gap and establish that women’s propensity to work in lower paid occupations is a major culprit in the emergence of a gender earnings gap. We provide suggestive evidence of why women choose to work in lower paid occupations.