IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

Adjusting the Labour Supply to Mitigate Violent Shocks: Evidence from Rural Colombia

Author Info

  • Manuel Fernández

    (World Bank, Washington, DC)

  • Ana María Ibáñez

    ()

    (Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia)

  • Ximena

    (Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia)

Abstract

This paper studies the use of labour markets to mitigate the impact of violent shocks on households in rural areas in Colombia. We examine changes in the labour supply from on-farm to off-farm labour as a means of coping with the violent shock and the ensuing redistribution of time within households. We also identify the heterogeneous response by gender. Because the incidence of violent shocks is not exogenous, we use instrumental variables which capture several dimensions of the cost of exercising terror. As a response to the violent shocks, households decrease the time spent on on-farm work and increase their supply of labour to off-farm activities (i.e., non-agricultural ones). Men carry the bulk of the adjustment in the use of time inasmuch as they supply the most hours to off-farm nonagricultural work and formal labour markets. Labour markets are not fully absorbing the additional labour supply. Women in particular are unable to find jobs in formal labour markets and men have increased time dedicated to leisure and household chores. Additional off-farm supply is not fully covering drops in consumption. Our results suggest that in rural Colombia, labour markets are a limited alternative for coping with violent shocks. Thus, policies in conflict-affected countries should go beyond short-term relief and aim at preventing labour markets from collapsing and at supporting the recovery of agricultural production.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.hicn.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/wp103.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Households in Conflict Network in its series HiCN Working Papers with number 103.

as
in new window

Length: 53 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hic:wpaper:103
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.hicn.org

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
  • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
  • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
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.:

as in new window
  1. Ibáñez, Ana María & Moya, Andrés, 2010. "Vulnerability of Victims of Civil Conflicts: Empirical Evidence for the Displaced Population in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 647-663, April.
  2. Bundervoet, Tom & Verwimp, Philip & Akresh, Richard, 2008. "Health and civil war in rural Burundi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4500, The World Bank.
  3. Ana María Ibañez & Andrés Moya, 2010. "Do Conflicts Create Poverty Traps? Asset Losses and Recovery for Displaced Households in Colombia," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America, pages 137-172 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Robert Jensen, 2000. "Agricultural Volatility and Investments in Children," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 399-404, May.
  5. Marcel Fafchamps & Susan Lund, 2000. "Risk-Sharing Networks in Rural Philippines," Economics Series Working Papers 10, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
  6. Jacoby, Hanan G & Skoufias, Emmanuel, 1997. "Risk, Financial Markets, and Human Capital in a Developing Country," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 311-35, July.
  7. Kondylis, Florence, 2010. "Conflict displacement and labor market outcomes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 235-248, November.
  8. Behrman, Jere R, 1988. "Intrahousehold Allocation of Nutrients in Rural India: Are Boys Favored? Do Parents Exhibit Inequality Aversion?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 32-54, March.
  9. Verwimp, Philip, 2005. "An economic profile of peasant perpetrators of genocide: Micro-level evidence from Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 297-323, August.
  10. Richard Akresh & Philip Verwimp & Tom Bundervoet, 2011. "Civil War, Crop Failure, and Child Stunting in Rwanda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 777 - 810.
  11. Patricia Justino, 2008. "Poverty and Violent Conflict: A Micro-Level Perspective on the Causes and Duration of Warfare," HiCN Working Papers 46, Households in Conflict Network.
  12. Paxson, Christina H, 1992. "Using Weather Variability to Estimate the Response of Savings to Transitory Income in Thailand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 15-33, March.
  13. Lisa A. Cameron & Christopher Worswick, 2003. "The Labor Market as a Smoothing Device: Labor Supply Responses to Crop Loss," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 327-341, 05.
  14. Andre, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-47, January.
  15. Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp, 2006. "Poverty Dynamics, Violent Conflict and Convergence in Rwanda," HiCN Working Papers 16, Households in Conflict Network.
  16. Jean-Paul Azam & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "Violence Against Civilians in Civil Wars: Looting or Terror?," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 39(4), pages 461-485, July.
  17. Rose, Elaina, 2001. "Ex ante and ex post labor supply response to risk in a low-income area," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 371-388, April.
  18. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Behavioral responses to risk in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 23-49, October.
  19. Menon, Nidhiya & van der Meulen Rodgers, Yana, 2011. "War and Women's Work: Evidence from the Conflict in Nepal," IZA Discussion Papers 6209, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  20. Marcel Fafchamps & Chris Udry & Katherine Czukas, . "Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?," Working Papers 97013, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
  21. Bellows, John & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "War and local collective action in Sierra Leone," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1144-1157, December.
  22. Adriana Camacho, 2008. "Stress and Birth Weight: Evidence from Terrorist Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 511-15, May.
  23. Michael Carter & Christopher Barrett, 2006. "The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: An asset-based approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 178-199.
  24. Martín González-Rozada, 2010. "Comment on "Do Conflicts Create Poverty Traps? Asset Losses and Recovery for Displaced Households in Colombia"," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America, pages 173-174 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  25. Shemyakina, Olga, 2011. "The effect of armed conflict on accumulation of schooling: Results from Tajikistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 186-200, July.
  26. Anjini Kochar, 1999. "Smoothing Consumption by Smoothing Income: Hours-of-Work Responses to Idiosyncratic Agricultural Shocks in Rural India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 50-61, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Margarita Gáfaro & Ana María Ibáñez & David Zarruk, 2012. "Equidad y eficiencia rural en Colombia: una discusión de políticas para el acceso a la tierra," DOCUMENTOS CEDE 010318, UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES-CEDE.
  2. Lemus Natalia, 2014. "Conflict-Induced Poverty: Evidence from Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 113-142, January.
  3. Patricia Justino & Olga Shemyakina, 2010. "Remittances and Labor Supply in Post-Conflict Tajikistan," Research Working Papers 35, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
  4. Ana María Ibáñez Londoño & Juan Carlos Muñoz Mora & Philip Verwimp, 2013. "Abandoning Coffee under the Threat of Violence and the Presence of Illicit Crops. Evidence from Colombia," DOCUMENTOS CEDE 011465, UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES-CEDE.
  5. Mayra Buvinic & Monica Das Gupta & Ursula Casabonne & Philip Verwimp, 2012. "Violent Conflict and Gender Inequality: An Overview," Working Papers CEB 12-028, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  6. Isabelle Joumard & Juliana Londoño Vélez, 2013. "Income Inequality and Poverty in Colombia - Part 1. The Role of the Labour Market," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1036, OECD Publishing.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hic:wpaper:103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Alia Aghajanian)

or ()

The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask to update the entry or send us the correct address or ()

or ()

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.