IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcre/13-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour Market Entry and Earnings: Evidence from Tanzanian Retrospective Data

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Bridges
  • Louise Fox
  • Alessio Gaggero
  • Trudy Owens

Abstract

We exploit a unique dataset of retrospective information from urban Tanzania to estimate the effect of early labour market experiences on adult labour market outcomes. We consider four labour market entry states – wage employment, selfemployment, employment in the family business, and unemployment - and estimate how final earnings are associated with that entry state. The findings suggest that how individuals enter the labour market does matter for final outcome. We find that for those able to access wage employment, an initial period of unemployment while searching for a wage job may be preferred to an initial period in self-employment or the family business. However, for the two thirds who searched for an average of 5 years and still did not find a wage job, the gamble does not pay off.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Bridges & Louise Fox & Alessio Gaggero & Trudy Owens, 2013. "Labour Market Entry and Earnings: Evidence from Tanzanian Retrospective Data," Discussion Papers 13/05, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcre:13/05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/credit/documents/papers/crp-13-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sicherman, Nachum & Galor, Oded, 1990. "A Theory of Career Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 169-192, February.
    2. Falco, Paolo & Maloney, William F. & Rijkers, Bob & Sarrias, Mauricio, 2015. "Heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing: An application to occupational allocation in Africa," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 137-153.
    3. Evans, David S & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1989. "An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 808-827, August.
    4. Falco, Paolo & Kerr, Andrew & Rankin, Neil & Sandefur, Justin & Teal, Francis, 2011. "The returns to formality and informality in urban Africa," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 23-31.
    5. Kweka, Josaphat & Fox, Louise, 2011. "The household enterprise sector in Tanzania : why it matters and who cares," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5882, The World Bank.
    6. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Introduction to "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings"," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 1-4, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    8. Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance J. & Todd, Petra E., 2006. "Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 307-458, Elsevier.
    9. T. W. Schultz, 1970. "The Reckoning of Education as Human Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Income, and Human Capital, pages 297-306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1, March.
    11. Fields, Gary S., 1975. "Rural-urban migration, urban unemployment and underemployment, and job-search activity in LDCs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 165-187, June.
    12. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053.
    13. David Blanchflower & B Meyer, 1991. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Young Entrepreneurs in Australia and the United States," CEP Discussion Papers dp0055, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Teal, Francis, 2011. "The price of labour and understanding the causes of poverty," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 7-15.
    15. Rosella Gardecki & David Neumark, 1998. "Order from Chaos? The Effects of Early Labor Market Experiences on Adult Labor Market Outcomes," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(2), pages 299-322, January.
    16. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-535, June.
    17. Timothy Bates, 1989. "Entrepreneur Factor Inputs and Small Business Longevity," Working Papers 89-4, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    20. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    21. Gregg, Paul, 2001. "The Impact of Youth Unemployment on Adult Unemployment in the NCDS," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 626-653, November.
    22. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Banks, 2014. "What works for young people's development? A Case Study of BRAC's Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescent Girls programme in Uganda and Tanzania," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 21214, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    2. Ms. Louise Fox, 2015. "Are African Households Heterogeneous Agents?: Stylized Facts on Patterns of Consumption, Employment, Income and Earnings for Macroeconomic Modelers," IMF Working Papers 2015/102, International Monetary Fund.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aysit Tansel & Elif Oznur Acar, 2016. "The Formal/Informal Employment Earnings Gap: Evidence from Turkey," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality after the 20th Century: Papers from the Sixth ECINEQ Meeting, volume 24, pages 121-154, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Oliver Morrissey & Susan Namirembe Kavuma & Richard Upward, 2015. "Private returns to education for wage-employees and the self-employed in Uganda," WIDER Working Paper Series 021, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Susan Namirembe Kavuma & Oliver Morrissey & Richard Upward, 2015. "Private Returns to Education for Wage-employees and the Self-employed in Uganda," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-021, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Mattia Filomena, 2021. "Unemployment Scarring Effects: A Symposium On Empirical Literature," Working Papers 453, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    5. Fossen, Frank M. & Büttner, Tobias J.M., 2013. "The returns to education for opportunity entrepreneurs, necessity entrepreneurs, and paid employees," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 66-84.
    6. Aysit Tansel & Elif Oznur Acar, 2016. "The Formal/Informal Employment Earnings Gap: Evidence from Turkey," Research on Economic Inequality,in: Inequality after the 20th Century: Papers from the Sixth ECINEQ Meeting, volume 24, pages 121-154 Emerald Publishing Ltd.
    7. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.
    8. Michael S. Delgado & Daniel J. Henderson & Christopher F. Parmeter, 2014. "Does Education Matter for Economic Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(3), pages 334-359, June.
    9. L. Cattani & G. Guidetti & G. Pedrini, 2014. "Assessing the incidence and wage effects of overeducation among Italian graduates using a new measure for educational requirements," Working Papers wp939, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    10. Parker, Simon C., 2013. "Do serial entrepreneurs run successively better-performing businesses?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 652-666.
    11. Niklas Engbom & Christian Moser, 2017. "Returns to Education through Access to Higher-Paying Firms: Evidence from US Matched Employer-Employee Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 374-378, May.
    12. Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner & Paul Sullivan, 2019. "Job Tasks, Time Allocation, and Wages," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 399-433.
    13. Gensowski, Miriam, 2018. "Personality, IQ, and lifetime earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 170-183.
    14. Jacek Liwiński, 2017. "Premia płacowa z kształcenia na studiach podyplomowych," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 5, pages 105-127.
    15. Sebastian Kripfganz & Claudia Schwarz, 2019. "Estimation of linear dynamic panel data models with time‐invariant regressors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 526-546, June.
    16. Jovanovic, Boyan & Nyarko, Yaw, 1997. "Stepping-stone mobility," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 289-325, June.
    17. Morchio, Iacopo & Moser, Christian, 2018. "The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences," MPRA Paper 99276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Mar 2020.
    18. Belzil, Christian, 2007. "The return to schooling in structural dynamic models: a survey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 1059-1105, July.
    19. Flávio Cunha & James Heckman, 2016. "Decomposing Trends in Inequality in Earnings into Forecastable and Uncertain Components," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S2), pages 31-65.
    20. Boll Christina & Wolf André & Rossen Anja, 2017. "The EU Gender Earnings Gap: Job Segregation and Working Time as Driving Factors," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(5), pages 407-452, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:not:notcre:13/05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hilary Hughes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cenotuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.