Guillermo Montt

Population growth, increasing wealth and changing diets require agriculture in Sub‐Saharan Africa to intensify to meet future food demand and ensure food security in the region. Conservation agriculture can increase yields in the long run and reduce the negative environmental impacts of intensive farming. In changing the mix of resources used and how they are managed, the adoption of conservation agriculture can have a direct impact on farm labour. We study the relationship between conservation agriculture and labour input requirements as observed in five Sub‐Saharan African countries. We focus on the amount of work required and the source of the work employed (household or hired, by gender, by children and by production stage). We apply multinomial endogenous switching regression models on a panel of household and farm data from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. We find that conservation agriculture increases farms’ labour input requirements. Higher demand is driven by more work during the harvesting and threshing stages. Increases in labour requirements are usually met by household labour, not paid work. The workload change is also higher for women than for men, and, in certain cases, is met by children.

In a resource-constrained world of an estimated 10 billion people in 2050 with the same material aspirations of today’s high-income nations there is no question: The future economy will need to be circular. From a policy perspective, the question is whether averting catastrophic environmental impacts through an accelerated transition to a global circular economy can also deliver sustained growth and jobs. The adoption of circular economy measures will have a range of effects both on domestic and foreign supply-chains. Multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis models the interdependencies between industries, within and between countries, as well as between intermediate and final goods producers and consumers. It provides a useful toolbox for assessing social, environment and economy-wide impacts of the adoption of the circular economy. We project the MRIO database EXIOBASE to 2030 based on the exogenously given parameters of the IEA Energy Technology Perspective’s 6-degree scenario. We compare this business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and an alternative circular economy scenario. The circular economy scenario considers more recycling, reducing (material efficiency increase), repair and reuse, in relation to the BAU scenario. The adoption of circular economy measures has diverse impacts on the economy and environmental pressures. Global material extraction is reduced by about 10% compared to the baseline, while the impact on employment is small, but positive. In particular, the shift from resource extracting sectors to the service sector will provide more opportunities for high skilled and for female workers.

The Paris Agreement lays out the objective of keeping global warming below 2 °C. The goal can be achieved by increasing both the share of renewables in the energy mix and energy efficiency. Such action entails a transformation of the energy sector, which, given its linkages with the rest of the economy, will have a knock‐on effect on other sectors. Using scenarios based on a multiregional input–output database, this article explores the economy‐wide and worldwide employment impact of such a transition. Findings suggest that by 2030 most economies will experience net job creation and reallocation across industries. Job creation is driven by the construction, manufacturing and renewables sectors.

Resumen: El Acuerdo de París establece el objetivo de mantener el calentamiento global por debajo de los 2 °C a partir de los niveles preindustriales. Ello puede lograrse aumentando la proporción de energías renovables y la eficiencia energética, lo que implica una transformación del sector energético que tendrá un efecto en cadena en otros sectores. Mediante simulaciones basadas en una matriz insumo‐producto multirregionales se explora el impacto de esta transición en el empleo a escala mundial. En 2030, casi todas las economías experimentarán redistribución de puestos entre sectores económicos y creación neta de empleo, impulsada esta última por la construcción, las manufacturas y las energías renovables.

Résumé: L'Accord de Paris fixe pour objectif de limiter le réchauffement climatique à 2 °C. Il faudra pour cela accroître la part des énergies renouvelables et améliorer l'efficacité énergétique. Une telle transition énergétique aura des répercussions sur l'ensemble de l'économie, y compris en matière d'emploi. Les auteurs cherchent à mesurer cet effet sur l'emploi en utilisant un modèle entrées‐sorties multirégional. Ils montrent que la transition énergétique débouchera sur une création nette d'emplois dans la plupart des économies en 2030 (principalement grâce à la construction, à l'industrie manufacturière et au secteur des énergies vertes) et sur des flux d'emplois intersectoriels.

Air pollution affects workers’ ability to work by damaging their own health, but also by damaging the health of their dependents. This paper draws on 20 years of air pollution and employment data from Santiago, Chile, a highly polluted metropolis, particularly in fall and winter months. The paper finds that though air pollution is not associated to a reduction in overall hours worked, it does so for women and particularly for women with children. Weeks with pollution at 100 μg/m³, common for Santiago, see double the gender difference in working hours. It is hypothesised that children, unable to go to school, must stay home and cared for. These findings suggest that air pollution may contribute to gender inequality through the gendered-biased distribution of care responsibilities. Pollution brings to evidence gender inequalities in care and, given the gendered nature of care and the geographic distribution of pollution, may contribute to enhance gender and geographic labour market inequalities. Environmental policy may serve to enhance gender equality as well.

Field-of-study mismatch occurs when a worker, trained in a particular field, works in another field. This study draws on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) to explore how skill supply and labour market demand dynamics influence mismatch. It updates cross-national estimates on mismatch and estimates the mismatch wage penalty. Findings suggest that around 40% of workers are mismatched by field at their qualification level, 11% overqualified in their field and 13% overqualified and working outside their field. The saturation of the field in the labour market and the transferability of the fields’ skills predict the incidence of field-of-study mismatch and overqualification. Workers who are mismatched by field only suffer a wage penalty if they are overqualified.

Socioeconomic integration in schools has been shown to bring positive academic and nonacademic outcomes to disadvantaged students attending them. The academic benefits of integration on advantaged students are, by contrast, less evident. Effective integrated schools are those that promote disadvantaged students’ outcomes yet advantaged students do not experience a loss in their outcomes. This article draws on data from more than 70 countries to find organizational and national contexts where integrated schools promote the achievement of disadvantaged students while also promoting the achievement of advantaged students. Using propensity score matching techniques and PISA 2009 data, results show that effective integrated schools are elusive, although they can be found in the context of large schools, large class sizes, and some degree of within-school tracking. Effective integrated schools exist in a handful of countries.