Youth Employment Programs - Independent Evaluation Group

Notes1. This phenomenon could be less important if skills are defined as comprising botheducation and work experience. Youth’s lack of experience could then outweighthe benefits of their increased education. This hypothesis called “the doubleskillbias” has hardly been submitted to empirical verification (See Ryan 2001).2. Where still about 90 percent of the labor force works in the informal sector.3. Although measuring and isolating the effects of employment protectionlegislation is difficult, a number of studies find employment lower when theemployment protection legislation is strict. There is also evidence of changesin the dynamics of unemployment with lower inflows and outflows, and longerduration of unemployment spells (Bentolila and Bertola 1990; Nickell and Layard(1998), changes in the composition of unemployment with youth most adverselyaffected (Scarpetta 1996; Heckman and Pagés-Serra 2000). The OECD study (1999)suggests that employment protection legislation protects the jobs of prime-agemen at the cost of reducing employment for youth.ReferencesBell, David, and David Blanchflower. 2010. Youth Unemployment: “Déjà vu?“ IZA DPNo. 4705. Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit: Bonn, Germany.Dutz, Mark, Ioannis Kessides, Stephen O’Connell and Robert Willig. 2011.“Competition and Innovation-Driven Inclusive Growth.” World Bank PolicyResearch Working Paper 5852.Freeman, Richard, and David Wise. 1982. “The Youth Labor Market Problem: ItsNature, Causes, and Consequences.” National Bureau of Economic Research(NBER). http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7869.pdfHeckman, Jame J. and Carmen Pages-Serra. 2000. “The Cost of Job SecurityRegulation: Evidence from Latin American Labor Markets.” Economica 1(1):109-144.Independent Evaluation Group. 2012a. “World Bank and IFC Support for YouthEmployment Programs.” Background Paper. Country Case Study: Rwanda.Forthcoming.———. 2012b. “Project Performance Assessment Report, Sri Lanka Education.”Forthcoming.Nayar, Reema, Pablo Gottret, Pradeep Mitra, Gordon Betcherman, Yue Man Lee,Indhira Santos, Mahesh Dahal, and Maheshwor Shrestha. 2012. “More and BetterJobs in South Asia.” South Asia Development Matters. Washington, DC: WorldBank.64 Youth Employment Programs