Publication: Once NEET, Always NEET? A Synthetic Panel Approach to Analyze the Moroccan Labor Market
Loading...
Date
2020-05
ISSN
Published
2020-05
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
In many regions of the world, the persistent, and growing, proportion of young people who are currently not in employment, education, or training is of global concern. This is no less true of Morocco: about 30 percent of the Moroccan population between ages 15 and 24 are currently not in employment, education, or training. Drawing from various rounds of Moroccan labor force surveys, this paper contributes to understanding the complex dynamics of labor markets in developing countries. First, it identifies the socioeconomic determinants of Morocco's young population not in employment, education, or training. Second, employing a synthetic panel methodology in the context of labor market analysis, the paper describes how the conditions of individuals in this group has changed over time. One striking, and worrisome, pattern that emerges from the 2010 synthetic panel data is that, even after 10 years, a majority of the young population not in employment, education, or training remained outside the labor market or education, with very little chance of moving out of their situation. Their chronic stagnancy confirms the powerful effect that initial conditions have on determining young people's future outcomes.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Alfani, Federica; Clementi, Fabio; Fabiani, Michele; Molini, Vasco; Valentini, Enzo. 2020. Once NEET, Always NEET? A Synthetic Panel Approach to Analyze the Moroccan Labor Market. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9238. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33747 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication Impact of Heat Waves on Learning Outcomes and the Role of Conditional Cash Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)This paper evaluates the impact of higher temperatures on learning outcomes in Peru. The results suggest that 1 degree above 20°C is equivalent to 7 and 6 percent of a standard deviation of what a student learns in a year for math and reading tests, respectively. These results hold true when the main specification is changed, splitting the sample, collapsing the data at school level, and using other climate specifications. The paper aims to improve understanding of how to deal with the impacts of climate change on learning outcomes in developing countries. The evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs can mitigate the negative effects of higher temperatures on students’ learning outcomes in math and reading.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Does Gender Equality in Labor Participation Bring Real Equality? Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04)Drawing on various macro- and micro-data sources, the authors present robust evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and inequality. Overall, female labor force participation is found to have a strong and significant dis-equalizing impact in at least three groups of developing countries with relatively low initial levels of participation. A decile-level analysis shows that female labor force participation has higher levels of returns among top deciles compared with the lower deciles in the developing countries analyzed. This evidence focuses attention on the importance of developing policies specifically targeting women in lower deciles of the income distribution.Publication The Devil is in the Detail(Oxford University Press, 2019-08)The present paper, starting from evidence of low growth-to-poverty elasticity characterizing Africa, purports to identify the distributional changes that limited the pro-poor impact of the last two decades’ growth. Distributional changes that went undetected by standard inequality measures were not showing a clear pattern of inequality on the continent. By applying a new decomposition technique based on a non-parametric method—the ‘relative distribution’—we found a clear distributional pattern affecting almost all analysed countries. Nineteen out twenty four countries experienced a significant increase in polarization, particularly in the lower tail of the distribution, and this distributional change lowered the pro-poor impact of growth substantially. Without this unfavorable redistribution, poverty could have decreased in these countries by an additional five percentage points.Publication Is Inequality Systematically Underestimated in Sub-Saharan Africa ? A Proposal to Overcome the Problem(World Bank, Washington, DC:, 2022-05)In Africa, evidence on the interactions among poverty, growth, and income distribution presents a puzzle: While growth has been robust in recent decades, the growth elasticity of poverty has remained low. This suggests that inequality has dampened the pro-poor effects of growth. However, when using standard inequality measures, there is only scattered evidence of high and growing inequality in Africa outside the extremely unequal southern cone. This paper argues that inequality mismeasurement could be the main culprit responsible for this paradox: consumption-based measures miss important information at the top end of the consumption distribution, leading to underestimation of inequality. This paper proposes distinct solutions, arguing that by reevaluating the importance of distributional issues in Africa, the need becomes apparent for refreshing the research agenda on African development in such a way that the interaction between poverty and inequality becomes a core concern.Publication Portraits of Labor Market Exclusion(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-08)The financial crisis that hit the global market in the middle of 2008 gave way to the sharpest contraction of the European economies since the Great Depression. In 2009 the economic output in the countries of the European Union shrank 4.5 percent, the largest reduction in GDP since its creation. Since then, the economies have slowly recovered, but unemployment has continued to rise, reaching 11 percent in 2013, up from 7.1 percent in 2008. The economy of the European Union shrank 4.5 percent, the largest reduction in its GDP since the Union s creation. Furthermore, for the European Union as a whole, long-term unemployment among 15- to 64-year-olds has increased from 37.2 percent in 2008 to 47.5 percent of total unemployment in 2013. In several countries more than half of those unemployed are long-term unemployed, that is, they have been looking for jobs for more than 12 months. In Greece and Bulgaria the share of long-term unemployed in 2013 was 67.5 percent and 57.3 percent, respectively. Youth unemployment, on the other hand, has increased almost 8 percent since 2008, reaching 23.3 percent in 2013 in the EU-28 countries. In Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, around a fourth of 15- to 24-year-olds are unemployed; in Greece close to 60 percent of youth were unemployed in 2013. Long spells of unemployment expose individuals to impoverishment. They can also lead to deterioration of skills and detachment from the labor market. Youth unemployment is particularly concerning as it risks damaging longer-term employment prospects for young people, leading them to face higher risks of exclusion and poverty. Youth unemployment also has growth implications as a generation of educated and productive people are not working at their potential. Finally, very high levels of youth unemployment for long periods of time can become a threat to social stability.Publication Poverty in Mozambique : New Evidence from Recent Household Surveys(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10)This paper has three primary objectives: (i) to investigate potential problems regarding Mozambique's most recent nationally representative household survey on poverty dynamics; (ii) to assess the robustness and reliability of official poverty statistics; and (iii) to provide alternative estimates of poverty and welfare indicators in light of the methodological and analytical issues raised in areas (i) and (ii). It is determined that at least two significant weaknesses affect the official poverty-rate estimates: measurement errors in consumption data and flaws in the methodology used to calculate poverty lines (the cost-of-basic-needs approach based on provincial food bundles with entropy correction). A number of observations appear to be affected by substantial measurement errors, which severely distort the official poverty statistics. The paper provides methods to correct the consumption distribution by recalculating poverty lines based on a single national food basket -- as opposed to the current estimates, which are based on province-specific food baskets. The revised poverty statistics differ considerably from the official estimates of poverty across provinces and are far more consistent with other poverty indicators. In addition, poverty appears to be highly concentrated in certain areas, with dramatically higher rates found in Central and Northern Mozambique, as well as in rural areas overall, compared with relatively low rates in Southern Mozambique and in the country's urban centers. These findings substantially contradict the government's official poverty figures, which appear to systematically overestimate poverty rates in Mozambique's Southern provinces and urban areas while simultaneously underestimating the prevalence of poverty in the country's Central and Northern regions and in rural areas nationwide.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Remarks to the Annual Meetings 2020 Development Committee(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-16)David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, announced that the Board approved a fast track approach to emergency health support programs that now covers 111 countries. Most projects are well advanced, with average disbursement upward of 40 percent. The goal is to take broad, fast action early. The operational framework presented back in June has positioned the Bank to help countries address immediate health threats and social and economic impacts and maintain our focus on long-term development. The Bank is making good progress toward the 15-month target of 160 billion dollars in surge financing. Much of it is for the poorest countries and will take the form of grants or low-rate, long-maturity loans. IFC, through the Global Health Platform, will be providing financing to vaccine manufacturers to foster expanded production of COVID-19 vaccines in both part 1 and 2 countries, providing production is reserved for emerging markets. The Development Committee holds a unique place in the international architecture. It is the only global forum in which the Governments of developed countries and the Governments of developing countries, creditor countries and borrower countries, come together to discuss development and the ‘net transfer of resources to developing countries.’ The current International Financial Architecture system is skewed in favor of the rich and creditor countries. It is important that all voices are heard, so Malpass urged the Ministers of developing countries to use their voice and speak their minds today. Malpass urged consideration of how we can build a new approach to debt restructuring that allows for a fair relationship and balance between creditors and debtors. This will be critical in restoring growth in developing countries; and helping reverse the inequality.Publication Improving the Performance of Higher Education in Vietnam(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-04-28)The progress of East Asian economies in recent years illustrates a strong symbiotic relationship among higher education, innovation, and growth through the production of research and skills. In the case of Vietnam, higher education has a significant positive effect on household poverty and long-term earnings at the individual level, where annualized private returns to higher education are above fifteen percent, one of the highest levels in the world. As Vietnam aspires to become an upper middle-income country by 2035, its productivity needs to increase continuously, which requires greater production and effective use of highskilled manpower and science, technology and innovation (STI). There is a disconnect between Vietnam’s remarkable achievement on equitable economic growth and human development, on the one hand, and the performance of the higher education system, on the other hand. Vietnam has experimented with a number of higher education reforms in the last two decades, with some success in expanding access but missing opportunities in achieving good results on quality and relevance, and in furthering equity. The main objective of this Bank’s report is to provide a diagnosis of the current performance of the Vietnamese universities and propose a range of options for transforming and developing the higher education system.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-11)After several years of negative shocks, global growth is expected to hold steady in 2024 and then edge up in the next couple of years, in part aided by cautious monetary policy easing as inflation gradually declines. However, economic prospects are envisaged to remain tepid, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Risks to the outlook, while more balanced, are still tilted to the downside, including the possibility of escalating geopolitical tensions, further trade fragmentation, and higher-for-longer interest rates. Natural disasters related to climate change could also hinder activity. Subdued growth prospects across many emerging market and developing economies and continued risks underscore the need for decisive policy action at the global and national levels. Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.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 Remarks at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-07)David Malpass, President of the World Bank, discussed the World Bank climate change action plan, debt and the DSSI, and resource needs for IDA countries.