Documents Tajikistan 3 results

"This paper investigates the economic fortunes of coerced vs. free workers in a global supply chain. To identify the differential treatment of otherwise similar workers we resort to a unique exogenous labor demand shock that affects wages in voluntary and involuntary labor relations differently. We identify the wage pass-through by capitalizing on Tajikistan's geographic variation in the suitability for cotton production combined with a surge in the world market price of cotton in 2010/11 in two types of firms: randomly privatized small farms and not yet privatized parastatal farms, the latter of which command political capital to coerce workers. The expansion in land attributed to cotton production led to increases in labor demand and wages for cotton pickers; however, the price hike benefits only workers on entrepreneurial private farms, whereas coerced workers of parastatal enterprises miss out. The results provide evidence for the political economy of labor coercion and for the dependence of the economic lives of many poor on the competitive structure of local labor markets."

"Economic collapse in the former communist bloc saw the erosion of financial support and services for young children. Since 1998 even the poorer countries of the bloc have seen a return to economic growth. But have the benefits been felt by children? Drawing on administrative and household survey data, this article examines three aspects of government support for young children — maternity benefit, child allowances and preschool provision — in four countries in different parts of the region: Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova and Tajikistan. The article concludes that these services remain vastly inadequate. In some countries child allowances are well targeted towards poorer households, but are too small in size to have an impact. Preschool overwhelmingly benefits urban families and the better-off, while paid maternity leave is increasingly rare. Given what is known about the long-term impact of both early education and early childhood poverty, the findings are of considerable concern."