To Sew or Not to Sew? : Assessing the Welfare Effects of the Garment Industry in Cambodia
This paper uses the 2011 Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey to analyze the relationship between participation in the garment industry and household welfare. The analysis relies on propensity score matching estimators to investigate whether households t...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/700631494941118323/To-sew-or-not-to-sew-assessing-the-welfare-effects-of-the-garment-industry-in-Cambodia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26753 |
| Summary: | This paper uses the 2011 Cambodia
Socio-Economic Survey to analyze the relationship between
participation in the garment industry and household welfare.
The analysis relies on propensity score matching estimators
to investigate whether households that have at least one
member employed in the textile and apparel sector are better
off than those who do not participate in the garment
industry, in terms of several monetary and non-monetary
welfare indicators. The findings show that garment
households are less likely to experience self-reported food
insufficiency, and their children are more likely to be
enrolled in school. Yet, the positive effect of the
treatment is restricted to the bottom 40 percent of the
consumption distribution, possibly due to the nature of
garment jobs, and the fact that they represent an attractive
alternative for the poorest households but not necessarily
for the better-off. Using instrumental-variables, the
analysis also shows that remittances originating from the
textile and apparel sector relax household budget
constraints, increasing expenditures in education, health,
and investments in agricultural activities. |
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