African Mining, Gender, and Local Employment
It is a contentious issue whether large scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has been accused of hurting women’s labor supply and economic opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyz...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/04/24423239/african-mining-gender-local-employment http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21866 |
| Summary: | It is a contentious issue whether large
scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has
been accused of hurting women’s labor supply and economic
opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining
in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze local structural shifts. It
matches 109 openings and 84 closings of industrial mines to
survey data for 800,000 individuals and exploits the
spatial-temporal variation. With mine opening, women living
within 20 km of a mine switch from self-employment in
agriculture to working in services or they leave the work
force. Men switch from agriculture to skilled manual labor.
Effects are stronger in years of high world prices. Mining
creates local boom-bust economies in Africa, with permanent
effects on women’s labor market participation. |
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