Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies

Randomized control trial to evaluate a programme in Bangladesh that transfers livestock assets and skills to the poorest women

Abstract

The authors study how women’s choices over labor activities in village economies correlate with poverty and whether enabling the poorest women to take on the activities of their richer counterparts can set them on a sustainable trajectory out of poverty. To do this they conduct a large-scale randomized control trial, covering over 21,000 households in 1,309 villages surveyed 4 times over a 7-year period, to evaluate a nationwide program in Bangladesh that transfers livestock assets and skills to the poorest women.

This work is part of the ‘Basic Entrepreneurship: A Means for Transforming the Economic Lives of the Poor?’ project supported, in part, by the UK Department for International Development.

Citation

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman; Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 132, Issue 2, 1 May 2017, Pages 811–870, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjx003

Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies

Published 20 March 2017