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The development impact of a best practice seasonal worker policy

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  • Gibson, John
  • McKenzie, David

Abstract

Seasonal migration programs are widely used around the world, and are increasingly seen as offering a potential"triple-win"-- benefiting the migrant, sending country, and receiving country. Yet there is a dearth of rigorous evidence as to their development impact, and concerns about whether the time periods involved are too short to realize much in the way of benefits, and whether poorer, less skilled households actually get to participate in such programs. This paper studies the development impacts of a recently introduced seasonal worker program that has been deemed to be"best practice."New Zealand's Recognized Seasonal Employer program was launched in 2007 with an explicit focus on development in the Pacific alongside the aim of benefiting employers at home. A multi-year prospective evaluation allows measurement of the impact of participation in this program on households and communities in Tonga and Vanuatu. Using a matched difference-in-differences analysis based on detailed surveys fielded before, during, and after participation, the authors find that the Recognized Seasonal Employer program has indeed had largely positive development impacts. It has increased income and consumption of households, allowed households to purchase more durable goods, increased the subjective standard of living, and had additional benefits at the community level. It also increased child schooling in Tonga. This should rank it among the most effective development policies evaluated to date. The policy was designed as a best practice example based on lessons elsewhere, and now should serve as a model for other countries to follow.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 5488.

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Date of creation: 01 Nov 2010
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5488

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Keywords: Small Area Estimation Poverty Mapping; Housing&Human Habitats; Population Policies; Economic Theory&Research; Anthropology;

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References

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  1. Richard K. Crump & V. Joseph Hotz & Guido W. Imbens & Oscar A. Mitnik, 2004. "Dealing with Limited Overlap in Estimation of Average Treatment Effects," Working Papers 0716, University of Miami, Department of Economics, revised 12 Jun 2007.
  2. David McKenzie & Pilar Garcia Martinez & L. Alan Winters, 2008. "Who is Coming from Vanuatu to New Zealand under the New Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Program?," Working Papers in Economics 08/09, University of Waikato, Department of Economics.
  3. Macours, Karen & Vakis, Renos, 2008. "Seasonal Migration and Early Childhood Development," Working Papers RP2008/48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
  4. L. Alan Winters & Terrie L. Walmsley & Zhen Kun Wang & Roman Grynberg, 2003. "Liberalising Temporary Movement of Natural Persons: An Agenda for the Development Round," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1137-1161, 08.
  5. Clemens, Michael & Montenegro, Claudio & Pritchett, Lant, 2009. "The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers across the US Border," Working Paper Series rwp09-004, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  6. Ravallion, Martin & Lokshin, Michael, 2000. "Identifying welfare effects from subjective questions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2301, The World Bank.
  7. Dehejia, Rajeev, 2005. "Practical propensity score matching: a reply to Smith and Todd," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 355-364.
  8. David McKenzie & Steven Stillman & John Gibson, 2010. "How Important is Selection? Experimental VS. Non‐Experimental Measures of the Income Gains from Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 913-945, 06.
  9. David S. Lee, 2009. "Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(3), pages 1071-1102.
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Cited by:
  1. Bryan, Gharad & Chowdhury, Shyamal & Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq, 2012. "Seasonal Migration and Risk Aversion," CEPR Discussion Papers 8739, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. Melissa SIEGEL & Jennifer WAIDLER, 2012. "Migration and multi-dimensional poverty in Moldovan communities," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 3, pages 105-119, December.
  3. Akbulut-Yuksel, Mevlude & Yuksel, Mutlu, 2011. "The Long-Term Direct and External Effects of Jewish Expulsions in Nazi Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 5850, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Kudo, Yuya, 2012. "Returns to migration : the role of educational attainment in rural Tanzania," IDE Discussion Papers 322, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).

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