Dorte Verner

Youth at Risk in Latin America and the Caribbean : Understanding the Causes, Realizing the Potential

Realizing the potential of Latin America and the Caribbeans (LAC) youth is essential not only to their well-being, but also to the long-term welfare of the whole region. Young peoples families, communities, and governments as well as private, nonprofit, and international organizations, have a responsibility to help youth reach their potential. There have been many successes but also important failures. How to build on the successes and correct the failures is the subject of this report. This book has two objectives: to identify the at-risk youth in LAC, and to provide evidence-based guidance to policy makers in LAC countries that will help them to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their youth investments. The book concludes that governments can be more effective in preventing young people from engaging in risky behavior in the first place and also in assisting those who already are engaged in negative behavior. To support governments in this endeavor, the book provides a set of tools to inform and guide policy makers as they reform and implement programs for at-risk youth.

Education, earnings, and inequality in Brazil, 1982-98 - implications for education policy

The educational attainment of Brazils labor force, has gradually increased over the past two decades. At the same time, the government has pursued a series of economic structural adjustment policies. The authors investigate how these simultaneous advances have altered the relationship between labor market earnings, and education. They find that the returns to education in the labor market, fundamentally changed between 1982, and 1998. While the returns to tertiary education increased sharply, the returns to primary education dropped by 26 percent, and those to lower secondary, by 35 percent. Moreover, the authors argue, the marginal reduction in wage inequality that occurred in this period was linked primarily to a reduction in the returns to schooling, and only secondarily, to a more equitable distribution of schooling. The findings suggest that the supply of highly skilled labor is inadequate to meet demand. That suggests a need for policy action aimed at increasing access to, and completion of tertiary education. Increasing the supply of highly skilled labor, would improve prospects for both economic growth, and reduce wage inequality.

Crime and violence in development : a literature review of Latin America and the Caribbean

The authors review the recent literature on crime and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean and present a broad overview of the main ideas and empirical findings. They provide estimates of the magnitude of the problem, trends, and the manifestations of crime and violence in Latin America. They also discuss the ways in which violence affects development, the root causes of violence, and the empirical evidence on the determinants of crime. The authors conclude by stressing that preventive measures and innovative social policies are efficient and underutilized strategies to address the problem and call for both more research and operational experimentation.

School Drop-Out and Push-Out Factors in Brazil : The Role of Early Parenthood, Child Labor, and Poverty

This paper aims to identify the major drop-out and push-out factors that lead to school abandonment in an urban surrounding-the shantytowns of Fortaleza, Northeast Brazil. The authors use an extensive survey addressing risk factors faced by the population in these neighborhoods, which cover both in-school and out-of-school youth of both genders. They focus on the role of early parenthood, child labor, and poverty in pushing teenagers out of school. The potential endogeneity of some of the determinants is dealt with in the empirical analysis. The authors take advantage of the rich set of variables available and apply an instrumental variables approach. Early parenthood is instrumented with the age declared by the youngsters as the ideal age to start having sexual relationships. Work is instrumented using the declared reservation wage (minimum salary acceptable to work). Results indicate that early parenthood has a strong impact of driving teenagers out of school. Extreme poverty is another factor lowering school attendance, as children who have suffered hunger at some point in their lives are less likely to attend school. In this particular urban context, working does not necessarily have a detrimental effect on school attendance, which could be linked to the fact that dropping out of school leads most often to inactivity and not to work.

Migration and human capital in Brazil during the 1990s

Nearly 40 percent of all Brazilians have migrated at one point and time, and in-migrants represent substantial portions of regional populations. Migration in Brazil has historically been a mechanism for adjustment to disequilibria. Poorer regions and those with fewer economic opportunities have traditionally sent migrants to more prosperous regions. As such, the southeast region, where economic conditions are most favorable, has historically received migrants from the northeast region. Migration should have benefited both regions. The southeast benefits by importing skilled and unskilled labor that makes local capital more productive. The northeast can benefit from upward pressures on wages and through remittances that migrant households return to their region of origin. The northeast of Brazil is a net sender of migrants to the southeast. In recent years a large number of people moved from the southeast to the northeast. Compared with northeast to southeast (NE-SE) migrants, southeast to northeast (SE-NE) migrants are less homogeneous regarding age, wage, and income. SE-NE migrants are on average poorer and less educated than the southeast average, while NE-SE migrants are financially better off and higher educated than the northeast average. The authors find that the predicted returns to migration are increasing with education for SE-NE migrants and decreasing for NE-SE migrants. They further observe that the returns to migration have been decreasing for NE-SE migrants and increasing for SE-NE migrants between 1995 and 1999. This finding helps explain migration dynamics in Brazil. While the predicted positive returns to migration for NE-SE migrants indicate that NE-SE migration follows in general the human capital approach to migration, the estimated lower returns to migration for SE-NE may indicate that nonmonetary factors also play a role in SE-NE migration.

Reducing poverty, protecting livelihoods, and building assets in a changing climate social implications of climate change for Latin America and the Caribbean

This book provides a much needed look at the impact of climate change on the poor. It convincingly demonstrates that issues of poverty and livelihoods must be integrated into climate change policies to help achieve sustainable development gains. The high incidence of natural disasters, growing urbanization, and increased water scarcity combined with the acute impact of these phenomena on the poor and vulnerable complicates the already enormous challenge of reducing poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. This publication lays bare the social implications of climate change and equips the reader with a framework for understanding how climate change and climate variability affect livelihoods, poverty, income, health, and migration. These scenarios call for greater efforts to incorporate poverty, livelihood, and social considerations into climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. Purposefully targeted policies and investments can support economic growth and poverty reduction efforts and help achieve sustainable development goals. In other words, good climate change adaptation policies can also be good development policies. This book will change the way the author think about the relationship between poverty, social development, and climate change. It provides climate-smart policy options to help reduce vulnerability, protect livelihoods, and build communities that are resilient to changing climate conditions.

Youth at Risk, Social Exclusion, and Intergenerational Poverty Dynamics: A New Survey Instrument with Application to Brazil

This paper addresses the underlying causes of problems and risks faced by poor and excluded youth of 10-24 years of age. The authors develop a survey instrument that addresses poverty in a broad sense, including hunger, early pregnancy and fatherhood, violence, crime, drug use, low levels of social capital, and low educational attainment. The authors also shed light on intergenerational transfer of risks that are considered to induce poverty. They document findings based on the survey data gathered in three poor urban neighborhoods in Fortaleza in Northeast Brazil. Their main findings show that: (i) Poor youth are at considerable risk of growing up without their father. Only 7 percent grow up with their father present in the household. (ii) The intergenerational transmission of low education attainment is at play, but it is diminishing. (iii) The risk of early pregnancy and fatherhood is large among poor and excluded youth-31 percent of the youth had their first child before age 16, triple that of the adult population. (iv) The risk of sexual abuse and violence within the household exists-6 percent of the youth answered that they had their first sexual relationship with a family member, and 13 percent grow up in households with violence. (v) The social capital levels are low-only 5 percent of the youth and 9 percent of the adults have measurable social capital. (vi) The risk of growing up in a violent neighborhood is large-59 percent of the youth claim that they live in a violent neighborhood, 80 percent feel unsafe in their neighborhood, and 50 percent feel unsafe at home.

Youth Risk-Taking Behavior in Brazil: Drug Use and Teenage Pregnancy

Using an extensive survey that addresses risk factors faced by the population in the shantytowns (favelas) of Fortaleza, Brazil, the aim of this paper is to study risk-taking behavior by youth, focusing on drug use and teenage pregnancy. The paper analyzes the impact of factors such as exposure to mass media, the existence of support networks, self-esteem, and the occurrence of violence at home and in the neighborhood, on the probability of risk-taking behavior. A bivariate probit model is estimated. The findings indicate that reliance on support networks and exposure to mass media are associated with a lower probability of either type of risk behavior. Living in a violent home increases drug consumption. Race does not have a significant impact on either type of behavior.

Factors Impacting Youth Development in Haiti

Of the 1.6 million Haitian youth aged 15-24, only 13 percent are content with their lives. More than half of 20-year-olds have not completed secondary education and nearly half of youth in the labor market are unemployed. This paper investigates protective and risk factors predisposing youth to positive and negative behaviors. These factors, including poverty, gender, education, labor market, migration, family, health, and violence, are examined by using statistics and probability models based on Haitis first household living conditions survey. Key findings show that female youth need special attention because they are more likely than their male peers to drop out of school and to be unemployed or inactive. Role models, guidance, expectations, and contacts in the form of parents or household heads are decisive factors in keeping youth in school, and to some extent, in their finding employment. In addition, domestic migration has a negative impact on the probability of being unemployed or inactive (positive self-selection), while marriage, drug abuse, and domestic violence increase the probability of dropping out of school.

Are Wages and Productivity in Zimbabwe Affected by Human Capital Investment and International Trade

To analyze what determines wages and productivity in Zimbabwe, the author analyzes an employer/employee data-set from Zimbabwes manufacturing sector. The author finds that: * Formal education, training, and experience positively affect wages and productivity positively. * Women are paid roughly 37 percent less than men although they are not measurably less productive. * There is no strong indication of ethnic discrimination among employees, but Europeans are being paid more in larger firms, although they are marginally less productive than workers of African origin. * The wage premium for workers who completed secondary school does not necessarily reflect greater productivity but may indicate a shortage of educated workers. * Workers trained in-house earn more although in-house training does not instantly affect productivity. Training by outside trainers does improve productivity but is not rewarded with higher wages. * Apprentices are paid more than non-apprentices. Perhaps an apprentice diploma serves as a screening device, when hiring. * Temporary workers are more productive than permanent workers, perhaps hoping to get a permanent contract. * Union members earn less than non-union members despite being more productive. Perhaps union members fight more to have skills upgraded than for wage increases. * Larger exporting firms are marginally less productive and pay marginally less than the average firm, but ar more productive than smaller firms (and their wages match productivity). Workers in larger woods and metals are paid less than workers in smaller firms, although they are not less productive. * Exporting firms benefit more than employees do from trade openness and greater productivity. * Foreign-owned firms are more productive than other firms (perhaps because of new technology). * Firms that employ more expatriates tend to pay more. The more expatriates there are in metals firms, the more productive the employees are, perhaps because the expatriates bring knowledge about new technology to the enterprise. * Employees in the metal and textile sectors are paid more than those in the food sector, but employees in metals are less productive than employees from other sectors.