Deeksha Kokas

IZA DP No. 14597 JULY 2021 Poverty and Inequality in Tunisia: Recent Trends Tunisia’s reforms and agile shift to a more democratic political system since a major political revolution in 2011 has not prevented continued and rising citizen discontent. While this paper does not directly analyze this vexing problem, it assesses welfare indicators and labor markets nationally, regionally, and across different population groups—such as women and youth—over the last two decades. The paper shows that while Tunisia has significantly reduced poverty between 2000 and 2019, the profile of the poor has not changed much: poverty remains concentrated in rural and western regions, mainly among households with younger men without education and headed by someone working in low-productivity sectors such as agriculture and construction. Moreover, the share of the vulnerable Tunisian population at risk of falling into poverty is quite large, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, even though poverty ha...

Which region will become the next global factory? As the work force ages and labor costs rise in China and other East Asian countries, many eyes turn to South Asia. It is a region that is still largely rural, where agriculture accounts for a large share of employment and a substantial fraction of GDP, and it has not been particularly successful in integrating within itself and with the rest of the world. Yet, education levels are on the rise, and more than one million young workers enter the labor market each year, by 2030, 26 percent of the world’s working adults will live in South Asia. This is the region’s greatest opportunity and greatest challenge. What will determine South Asia’s ability to take advantage of the demographic transition to unlock its potential and accelerate growth, create jobs, reduce poverty, and boost shared prosperity? One of the answers lies in improving the region’s competitiveness. While different authors have proposed different definitions for the concep...

Which region will become the next global factory? As the work force ages and labor costs rise in China and other East Asian countries, many eyes turn to South Asia. It is a region that is still largely rural, where agriculture accounts for a large share of employment and a substantial fraction of GDP, and it has not been particularly successful in integrating within itself and with the rest of the world. Yet, education levels are on the rise, and more than one million young workers enter the labor market each year, by 2030, 26 percent of the world’s working adults will live in South Asia. This is the region’s greatest opportunity and greatest challenge. What will determine South Asia’s ability to take advantage of the demographic transition to unlock its potential and accelerate growth, create jobs, reduce poverty, and boost shared prosperity? One of the answers lies in improving the region’s competitiveness. While different authors have proposed different definitions for the concep...

High Frequency Mobile Phone Surveys of Households to Assess the Impacts of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is a series that is an overview of a global initiative by the World Bank. The global initiative is  to implement high-frequency mobile phone surveys of households to assess the impacts of COVID-19 (Coronavirus).