Niall O'Higgins

International Labour Organization | ILO · Employment Policy Department

Volunteer work has been recognized as crucial for the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recent research undertaken jointly by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and the International Labour Organization (ILO) has firmly established that, more often than not, volunteer work is assoc...

The 2022 edition discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people and their labour market prospects during the recovery and beyond. Youth have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and youth labour markets are now being buffeted by the lingering impacts of the pandemic, geopolitical risks and macroeconomic risks such as the...

Youth and the Digital Economy

The Perspective of the UN International Labour Organization

In recent years, crowdworking has emerged as a small but rapidly growing source of employment and income principally for young(er) people. Here, we build on previous work in identifying the determinants of crowdworkers’ earnings. We focus on the reasons why young crowdworkers earn significantly higher hourly wages than their older counterparts. We...

In recent years, crowdworking has emerged as a small but rapidly growing source of employment and income principally for young(er) people. Here, we build on previous work in identifying the determinants of crowdworkers' earnings. We focus on the reasons why young crowdworkers earn significantly higher hourly wages than their older counterparts. We...

Informal employment in Viet Nam: Trends and determinants examines the characteristics of and trends in informal employment in Viet Nam. Given both the complexity and heterogeneity of the phenomenon, the report considers the definition of informal employment as well as underlying labour market concepts. It outlines the characteristics of informal em...

In a novel experimental design, we investigate the impact of exogenous variation in economic growth and inequality on trusting behaviour. In addition to a control with uniform endowment, three treatments were implemented where the initial endowment is exogenously changed to produce inequality and three growth scenarios where average endowments incr...

This groundbreaking book examines the growing phenomenon of internships and the policy issues they raise, during a time when internships or traineeships have become an important way of transitioning from education into paid work.

This paper examines the existing evidence and undertakes further analysis, including on the effects of volunteering on young people as they embark upon their journey to adulthood, in particular as they seek to access good jobs. The paper aims to summarize the state of existing knowledge and provide new evidence on a range of questions regarding the...

The report reviews significant gender gaps in the labour market and youth labour market in the region, and assesses country differences in terms of extent and nature of the gaps. Factors underlying such gaps include issues with the application of legislation, the perseverance of traditional attitudes to women’s role in society, as well as, related...

Le volontariat a été reconnu comme un élément essentiel de la bonne mise en oeuvre du Programme de développement durable à l’horizon 2030 et de l’atteinte des objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Dans un contexte marqué par la pandémie actuelle de COVID-19, il n’a jamais été aussi urgent de trouver des moyens de faciliter l’accès des jeunes à...

This report provides vital statistics and information in support of the implementation of the Abidjan Declaration, focusing particularly on youth employment. In so doing, it gives an account of recent economic developments and highlights general trends of key indicators, such as real GDP, per capita GDP, labour productivity and wages. Employment an...

This document sets out guidelines for employment impact assessments (EIAs). Without solid impact assessment the credibility and reliability of policy orientation efforts can be challenged with significant implications for the validity and accountability of projects, as well as for resource mobilization. These guidelines are the result of long disc...

We analyse theoretically and empirically the effects on young people’s labour market outcomes of two specific labour market institutions and their interaction: employment protection legislation and active labour market policy. The paper examines recent policy reforms in Italy focusing on the impact of the 2012 Fornero reforms of employment protecti...

Incorporating the most recent labour market information available, Global Employment Trends for Youth sets out the youth labour market situation around the world. It shows where progress has or has not been made, updates world and regional youth labour market indicators, and gives detailed analyses of medium-term trends in youth population, labour...

Global concerns about the large numbers of young people who are neither in employment, education or training have led to the adoption of the NEET rate, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as an indicator of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 8.6. Evidence of progress to date is not very encouraging; between 2015, when...

L’ouvrage contient une série d’analyses et de revues critiques des éléments. Plusieurs questions précises en rapport avec les politiques de l’emploi des jeunes sont étudiées au moyen de diverses méthodes, dans l’optique de formuler des recommandations de principe destinées à faciliter l’accès des jeunes à un emploi décent. Les questions relevant de...

Ce chapitre a pour objet de contribuer au débat concernant les effets sur le marché de l’emploi des jeunes des interactions entre institutions du marché du travail, en s’attachant particulièrement aux effets sur l’emploi du salaire minimum. En partant du fait qu’on ne met pas en oeuvre des programmes et des politiques pour l’emploi des jeunes dans...

question de savoir comment faciliter l’accès des jeunes à des emplois décents devient toujours plus pressante et également plus complexe. De plus, les problèmes spécifiques que pose la promotion d’emplois décents pour les jeunes varient considérablement d’un pays ou d’une région à l’autre et en fonction des caractéristiques des jeunes eux-mêmes. Ce...

Une conclusion revient très souvent, et même tout le temps, dans la littérature traitant des performances des jeunes sur le marché du travail: la demande globale est un déter-minant essentiel de l'état du marché de l'emploi des jeunes. Il est parfaitement établi que ce que vivent les jeunes à leur arrivée sur le marché du travail dépend très large-...

Dans cet ouvrage, nous avons examiné les effets de contextes économiques, d’institutions, de politiques et de programmes divers sur les possibilités d’emploi qui s’offrent aux jeunes, tant sur le plan de la qualité que sur celui de la quantité. Même si l’exposé et l’analyse ne se voulaient pas exhaustifs, les auteurs ont traité − parfois d’une mani...

Ce chapitre traite principalement du rôle des subventions salariales et de leurs effets sur l’emploi et l’employabilité des jeunes. Les programmes de subventions salariales − qui consistent à réduire le coût pour les entreprises de l’embauche de jeunes − sont devenus l’un des piliers des programmes actifs du marché du travail (PAMT) dans les PRE, e...

Ce chapitre explore spécifiquement les actions menées en ce sens dans différents contextes (pays à revenu élevé, intermédiaire ou faible) pour faciliter l’insertion des jeunes sur le marché du travail et favoriser un développement inclusif.

L’emploi informel fait référence à «toutes les modalités d’emploi qui ne confèrent aucune protection juridique ou sociale aux travailleurs concernés qui, de ce fait, sont davantage exposés aux risques économiques […]». Cette définition inclut à la fois les travailleurs employés dans le secteur informel et les travailleurs qui occupent un emploi inf...

Une différence importante entre les jeunes travailleurs et les travailleurs plus âgés réside dans le manque d'expérience relatif des premiers. De plus en plus, les formes atypiques d'emploi, introduites au départ pour donner plus de souplesse au marché du travail, sont utilisées dans l'optique d'apporter aux jeunes l'expérience qu'ils n'ont pas, so...

This paper reviews the rather limited existing evidence on the effectiveness of internship as an integration mechanism for young people into the world of work. It seeks to identify which elements of internship are most useful in doing so. As well as reviewing existing studies, the paper analyses primary data using surveys of interns undertaken by t...

This brief contains an overview of youth employment in BRICS countries as well as separate analysis for each of the five BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation which provides insights into the social preferences of organized criminals and how these differ from those of “ordinary” criminals on the one hand and from those of the non-criminal population in the same geographical area on the other. We develop experimental evidence on cooperation a...

The issue of interactions between labour market institutions and policies and their effects on youth labour markets are the main focus of this paper. The paper analyses theoretically and empirically the effects on young people’s labour market outcomes of two specific labour market institutions and their interaction: employment protection legislatio...

The 2017 edition of Global Employment Trends for Youth: Paths to a better working future provides an update on key youth labour market indicators, trends and policies, focusing both on continuing labour market instability and on structural issues faced by young workers in the labour market. This report analyses data from the ILO’s Trends Econometri...

The issue of interactions between labour market institutions and policies and their effects on youth labour markets are the main focus of this paper. The paper reports the results of a meta-analysis of the youth employment effects of minimum wage legislation. This confirms that, for the most part, the dis-employment effects of minimum wages are eit...

http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_568735/lang--en/index.htm

Overview of the youth employment chllenge and the contents of the book, Rising to the youth employment challenge

Relatively little attention has been paid to the potential for macroeconomic policy specifically to improve labour market outcomes for young people. The chapter seeks to rectify this. Section 2.2 analyses the potential for discretionary fiscal policy to influence youth labour market outcomes, while the subsequent section 2.3 looks at the potential...

This chapter seeks to offer a contribution on the effects of interactions between labour market institutions on the youth labour market, focusing on the employment effects of the minimum wage. Recognizing that youth employment programmes and policies are not implemented in a void, it is reasonable to suppose that outcomes arising as a consequence o...

This chapter focuses primarily on the role and impact of wage subsidies in promoting the employment and employability of young people. Wage subsidy programmes – involving reducing the costs for firms of employing young people – have become a mainstay of active labour market programmes (ALMPs) in high-income countries (HICs), above all since the ons...

In recent years, supporting the growth of self-employment and entrepreneurship has become a key element of international organizations’ proposed strategies for promoting youth employment, particularly in lower-income countries. This chapter specifically explores self-employment and entrepreneurship interventions that have been adopted in various co...

One important difference between younger and older workers is the relative lack of work experience of the former. Increasingly, atypical work arrangements – or non-standard forms of employment – introduced with the intention of increasing labour market flexibility have been applied with a view to giving young people the experience they lack, often...

This chapter describes and analyses the prevalence, determinants and costs of informality, and, considering its findings, discusses potential policy remedies to reduce young people’s involvement in informal employment. To this end, the chapter draws on the ILO SWTS covering 34 LMICs, a collection of rich micro-level data sets that offer valuable in...

This book has considered the effects of different economic contexts, institutions, policies and programmes on the quality and quantity of employment available to young people. While the discussion and analysis has not sought to be comprehensive, it has treated – sometimes in an unusual way – aspects of all the major policy areas affecting the integ...

We run Dictators experiments in Southern Italy, a western country with a matrilineal culture, introducing - at the same time- social influence in the design. Our goal is to test whether the institutional culture and the role women have in the society are important factors in determining gender differences in altruism and generosity, compared to the...

This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation which allows a deeper insight into the nature of social preferences amongst organized criminals and how these differ from “ordinary” criminals on the one hand and from the non-criminal population in the same geographical area on the other. We provide experimental evidence on cooperatio...

This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation which allows a deeper insight into the nature of social preferences amongst organized criminals and how these differ from “ordinary” criminals on the one hand and from the non‐criminal population in the same geographical area on the other. We provide experimental evidence on cooperatio...

This paper develops a theoretical and empirical model on the influence of identity on educational choices which extends the existing literature in several directions. The theoretical model proposed here allows schooling choices to be independently influenced by both personal and social identities and, in contrast to previous work, the proposed empi...

The Roma are both the largest ‘minority’ ethnic group in Central and South-Eastern Europe (CSEE) and the one that suffered most from transition to the market. Still today, nearly 40 years after the introduction of the European Union (EU) 1975 Discrimination Directive and with the end of the ‘Roma Decade’ (2005–15) in sight, people from the Roma min...

There is little consensus on whether women are more generous than men; some research results indicate a higher propensity towards giving of female dictators, whilst others suggest the opposite. Two explanations have been put forward. According to the first one, women are more generous than men and the conflicting results are due to the way preferen...

Unequal labour market outcomes between Roma and non-Roma have typically been explained by either the low level of educational attainment on the one hand or labour marked discrimination on the other – or both. A number of studies have found that significant labour market inequalities persist even after the low levels of educational attainment amongs...

This paper discusses the NEP implementation mechanisms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is organized in six sections. The first two sections introduce the political framework, and the institutional and economic context of employment policy formulation and implementation the country. The third section reviews the organizational structure for employment...