Did a successful fight against COVID-19 come at a cost? Impacts of the pandemic on employment outcomes in Vietnam.

Despite its low middle-income status, Vietnam has been widely praised for its success in the fight against early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a low mortality rate of approximately 100 deaths out of a population of less than 100 million by the end of 2020. We add to the emerging literature on COVID-19 effects on the labor market for poorer countries by analyzing rich individual-level data from Vietnam's Labor Force Surveys spanning 2015 to 2020. We find post-pandemic increases in unemployment and temporary layoff rates alongside decreases in employment quality. Monthly wages declined even as the proportion of workers receiving below-minimum wages substantially increased, contributing to sharply rising wage inequality. Our findings suggest that more resources should be allocated to protect vulnerable workers, especially as the pandemic continues to cause increasingly severe damage to the global economy.

Composition of Household Income and Child Nutrition Outcomes Evidence from Uganda.

This study targets the empirical space between cross-country analyses exploring links between income and nutrition without insights on micro-level determinants, and relevant microeconomic studies hindered by small sample size and/or incomplete data. We use the rural samples of the three waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey, and estimate panel regressions of child height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) controlling for time-invariant child-level heterogeneity. On the whole, we find no impact of short-term changes in total gross income on HAZ but document small positive correlations for younger children. Sector-differentiated analyses indicate that compared to wage earnings, only share of income from non-farm self-employment correlates positively with HAZ. Within agriculture, shares of income from consumption of own crop production and from low-protein crop production underlie the negative effect of share of income from crop production. While we cannot claim causal relationships, our findings suggest the possibility of "stickiness" of crop production to own consumption.

Can incentives improve survey data quality in developing countries?: results from a field experiment in India.

We report results of an experiment designed to assess whether the payment of contingent incentives to respondents in Karnataka, India, impacts the quality of survey data. Of 2276 households sampled at the city block level, 934 were randomly assigned to receive a small one-time payment at the time of the survey, whereas the remaining households did not receive this incentive. We analyse the effects of incentives across a range of questions that are common in survey research in less developed countries. Our study suggests that incentives reduced unit non-response. Conditionally on participation, we also find little impact of incentives on a broad range of sociodemographic, behavioural and attitudinal questions. In contrast, we consistently find that households that received incentives reported substantially lower consumption and income levels and fewer assets. Given random assignment and very high response rates, the most plausible interpretation of this finding is that incentivizing respondents in this setting may increase their motivation to present themselves as more needy, whether to justify the current payment or to increase the chance of receiving resources in the future. Therefore, despite early indications that contingent incentives may raise response rates, the net effect on data quality must be carefully considered.

Agricultural commercialization and nutrition revisited: Empirical evidence from three African countries.

The transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture is key for economic growth. But what are the consequences for nutritional outcomes? The evidence to date has been scant and inconclusive. This study contributes to the debate by revisiting two prevailing wisdoms: (a) market participation by African smallholders remains low; and (b) the impact of commercialization on nutritional outcomes is generally positive. Using nationally representative data from three African countries, the analysis reveals high levels of commercialization by even the poorest and smallest landholders, with rates of market participation as high as 90%. Female farmers participate less, but tend to sell larger shares of their production, conditional on participation. Second, we find little evidence of a positive relationship between commercialization and nutritional status. As countries and international agencies prioritize the importance of nutrition-sensitive agriculture, better understanding of the transmission channels between crop choices and nutritional outcomes should remain a research priority.

Still waiting for Godot? Improving Household Consumption and Expenditures Surveys (HCES) to enable more evidence-based nutrition policies.

BACKGROUND: The constrained evidence base of food and nutrition policy-making compromises nutrition programs. Nutrition policy-making must do better than relying exclusively on Food and Agriculture Organization Food Balance Sheets. The strategy of relying on observed-weighed food record or 24-hour recall surveys has not proven practical either; they remain few in number, generally not nationally representative, and of dubious external validity. Although Household Consumption and Expenditures Surveys (HCES) have shortcomings, they are increasingly being used to address this information gap. OBJECTIVE: To promote dialog within the nutrition community, and between it and the greater community of HCES stakeholders, in order to identify their shared agenda and develop a strategy to improve HCES for analyzing food and nutrition issues. METHODS: The diverse origins and objectives of HCES are described, the evolution of their use in addressing food and nutrition issues is traced, and their shortcomings are identified. RESULTS: The causes, relative importance, some potential solutions, and the strategic implications of three distinct categories of shortcomings are discussed. Elements of a possible approach and process for strengthening the surveys are outlined, including identifying best practices, developing guidelines and more rigorously analyzing the tradeoffs involved in common, key survey design and implementation decisions. CONCLUSIONS: To date, the nutrition community's role in most HCES has been as a passive user of secondary data. The nutrition community must become more involved in the design, implementation, and analysis of HCES by identifying criteria for prioritizing countries, establishing assessment criteria, applying the criteria in retrospective assessments, identifying key shortcomings, and recommending alternatives to ameliorate the shortcomings. Several trends suggest that this is a propitious time for improving the relevance and reliability of HCES.

Gender and migration from Albania.

This article examines the dynamics and causes of the shift in the gender composition of migration, and more particularly, in women's access to migration opportunities and decision-making. Our analysis focuses on Albania, a natural laboratory for studying international migration where out-migration was essentially nonexistent from the end of World War II to the end of the 1980s. Interest in the Albanian case is heightened because of the complex layers of inequality existing at the time when migration began: relatively low levels of inequality within the labor market and educational system-a product of the Communist era-while household relations remained heavily steeped in tradition and patriarchy. We use micro-level data from the Albania 2005 Living Standards Measurement Study, including migration histories for family members since migration began. Based on discrete-time hazard models, the analysis shows a dramatic increase in male migration and a gradual and uneven expansion of the female proportion of this international migration. Female migration, which is shown to be strongly associated with education, wealth, and social capital, appears responsive to economic incentives and constraints. Using information on the dependency of female migration to the household demographic structure as well as the sensitivity of female migration to household-level shocks, we show how household-level constraints and incentives affect male and female migration differently. Throughout this period, however, women's migration behavior appears more directly aligned with household-level factors, and there is little evidence to suggest that increased female migration signals rising behavioral independence among Albanian women.