In the 1960s and 1970s a number of views were formed about unemployment in developing countries, which have remained largely accepted since then. The views can be summarized as three propositions: a) the poor cannot afford to become unemployed; b) labour markets in developing countries are always sufficiently open and flexible for work to be found, so that c) unemployment is a reflection of the search for jobs with high earnings on the part of those able to finance search costs.

In contrast, the conclusions of this review are that the poor can be and are increasingly to be found in large numbers among the unemployed; many young people have great difficulty in finding any sort of work, especially regular work; unemployment is high and appears to have been rising over the past 20 years. In sum, in the light of this review of evidence, the conventional wisdom described in the so-called luxury unemployment hypothesis is seriously flawed and should be set aside.

Les années 60 et 70 ont vu naître, dans les pays en développement, nombre d'idées sur le chômage, qui, depuis lors, restent largement admises. Trois propositions en résument le contenu : a) les pauvres ne peuvent pas se permettre de devenir chômeurs ; b) le marché du travail dans les pays en développement est toujours suffisamment ouvert et flexible pour qu'on y trouve du travail ; c) de ce fait, le chômage provient de la recherche d'emplois à hauts salaires de la part des couches sociales capables de financer le coût de leur quête de travail.

Contrairement aux idées reçues, cette étude conclut que ce sont les pauvres qui figurent, et ce, de façon croissante, parmi les chômeurs ; quantité de jeunes éprouvent de grandes difficultés à trouver quelque travail que ce soit, surtout un emploi régulier ; le chômage est élevé et n'a cessé de progresser au cours des vingt dernières années. L'hypothèse d'un chômage qu'on pourrait appeler "de luxe" se révèle donc insuffisante, voire ...

Download Info

To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

Publisher Info

Paper provided by OECD Development Centre in its series OECD Development Centre Working Papers with number 22.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML, plain text, BibTeX, RIS (EndNote), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Jul 1990
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:oec:devaaa:22-en

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16
Email:
Web page: http://www.oecd.org/Dev
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research

Keywords:

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

1. Maloney, William, 2003. "Informality revisited," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2965, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
   Other versions:
   • Maloney, William F., 2004. "Informality Revisited," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1159-1178, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
2. Cunningham, Wendy V. & Maloney, William F., 1998. "Heterogeneity among Mexico's micro-enterprises - an application of factor and cluster analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1999, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
   Other versions:
   • Cunningham, Wendy V & Maloney, William F, 2001. "Heterogeneity among Mexico's Microenterprises: An Application of Factor and Cluster Analysis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 131-56, October.
3. Yang Guang, 1999. "Facing unemployment : urban layoffs and the way out in post-reform China (1993-1999) : an empirical and theoretical analysis," Working Papers - General Series 308, Institute of Social Studies. [Downloadable!]
4. Maloney, William F., 1998. "The structure of labor markets in developing countries : time series evidence on competing views," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1940, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]

Did you know? A few items listed on IDEAS are over 2000 years old!

This page was last updated on 2008-11-16.