Nina Torm

Roskilde University · Department of Social Sciences and Business

Training contributes to economic growth through raising productivity, enabling the use of new technologies and allowing workers to raise earnings through widening their skills base. This paper uses mixed methods to examine individual returns to off-the-job training, on-the-job training and informal training focussing on informal workers in the sect...

Motivation Formal social protection systems, such as health insurance and representation, are often biased towards formal workers; thereby excluding most of the world's working population who make a living in the informal economy. Purpose The article extends existing critiques of the formality bias by investigating the reality of work for people i...

In Tanzania, poor enforcement of occupational health and safety (OHS) regulations has been associated with weak regulatory systems as well as lack of proper procedures on construction sites. However, the role of health and safety actors including organisational structures as enabling or disabling factors are under researched. This study employed qu...

This article investigates the barriers to informal workers’ voluntary participation in Kenya’s national health insurance scheme – the National Hospital Insurance Fund. Based on primary data from both qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that the key determinants of enrolment include social factors, such as marital status, which create dema...

This paper reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of active labour market programmes in low- and middle-income countries with high informality, highlighting examples of interventions that have been implemented in combination with other policies including social protection measures. In reviewing the literature, we adopt a scoping review methodolo...

The management of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) on construction sites continues to be an area of concern. Workers have continued to be blamed for unsafe behavior, contributing to the increase in the number of accidents on construction sites. Although various legislative acts enforcing Health and Safety (HS) exist, in-compliance with such leg...

Drawing on the preceding chapters, this chapter provides a comparative analysis of the construction, transport, and trade sectors across Kenya and Tanzania revealing many synergies with respect to the working environment and the importance of associations. The major differences which emerge between the sectors relate to the nature of organization,...

Firm-provided training is generally seen as an important tool for bridging the skills gap between the labour force and what the private sector demands. Little is known about how successful such training can be in closing the gender wage gap. We use a matched employer-employee panel dataset to assess why firms train and whether formal training affec...

The promotion of social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa happens in a context where informal labour markets constitute the norm, and where most workers live uncertain livelihoods with very limited access to official social protection. The dominant social protection agenda and the associated literature come with an almost exclusive focus on dono...

Resumen A pesar de la amplia bibliografía sobre la relación entre cotización social y rendimiento empresarial, la evidencia relativa a las pymes de las economías en desarrollo es escasa. Se examina aquí el caso de Indonesia utilizando datos censales empresariales de 2010 a 2014. Un aumento del gasto en seguridad social del 10 por ciento se asocia a...

Résumé Le lien entre protection sociale et résultats des entreprises est abondamment étudié, mais on manque d'informations sur la situation des petites et moyennes entreprises des économies en développement. L'auteure examine ce lien à partir de données de recensement indonésiennes portant sur la période 2010–2014. Elle constate que, lorsque les dé...

In the absence of adequate institutional mechanisms, trade unions can potentially promote some measure of equity and social justice for workers including for instance higher wages and other worker benefits. Yet limited data availability means little is known about the effect local firm-based trade unions may have on individual earnings in developin...

The relationship between social protection and enterprise performance is much debated in the literature, and evidence is particularly limited in the case of small and medium‐sized enterprises in developing economies. This paper examines how the provision of social security influenced business performance in Indonesia using census data from 2010 to...

In the absence of adequate institutional mechanisms, trade unions can potentially promote higher wages and other worker benefits, yet limited data availability means little is known about the effect unions have on individual earnings in developing economies. Using matched employer–employee data from 2013 and 2015 surveys, this paper examines the un...

Résumé Les auteurs examinent les effets de la sécurité sociale – critère du caractère formel de l'activité – sur les résultats des PME vietnamiennes. À partir de données sur les entreprises déclarées (2006–2011), ils constatent qu'une élévation de 10 pour cent de la couverture du personnel est associée à une augmentation du chiffre d'affaires et de...

Resumen Se investiga cómo la provisión de cobertura social –un factor clave de la formalidad– afecta al rendimiento de las pymes en Viet Nam. Con datos censales de todas las empresas declaradas de 2006 a 2011, los autores encuentran que las que aumentan su cobertura social en un 10 por ciento experimentan un aumento del ingreso por trabajador del 1...

In many developing countries the skill base is a cause of concern with respect to international competition. Firm-provided training is generally seen as an important tool for bridging the skills gap between labour force and private sector demand. Yet little is known about how successful such training may be in closing the gender wage gap. We use a...

Using Vietnamese Labour Force Survey data we analyse the impact of minimum wage changes on wage inequality. Minimum wages serve to reduce local wage inequality in the formal sectors by decreasing the gap between the median wages and the lower tail of the local wage distributions. In contrast, local wage inequality is increased in the informal secto...

On the basis of matched employer–employee data from 2007 to 2009, this paper examinesthe union wage gap among small and medium non-state manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam. Controlling for both worker and firm characteristics, the results provide evidence that union members earn higher wages than non-members, and are more likely to receive social...

Based on unique firm survey data from 2009, this paper examines the wage differential between formal and informal manufacturing household enterprises in Vietnam. Using the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method, we investigate whether the wage gap is attributed mostly to differences in observable characteristics (the endowments) between formal and inf...

Based on unique panel data consisting of both formal and informal firms, this paper uses a matched double difference approach to examine the relationship between legal status and firm level outcomes in micro, small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Controlling for determining factors and observable time-variant factors that ma...

This paper examines the extent to which recruitment ties affect individual wage outcomes in small and medium scale manufacturing firms. Based on a unique matched employer–employee dataset from Vietnam the authors find that there is a significant positive wage premium associated with obtaining a job through an informal contact, when controlling for...

This note provides an update on the ongoing debate over the World Bank's Doing Business project with a particular focus on its "Employing Workers" index, which is intended to measure difficulty of hiring, rigidity of working hours and difficulty of firing. The authors review the findings of studies that have used this index or been influenced by it...

Résumé Cette note fait le point sur le débat suscité par le projet Doing Business de la Banque mondiale, et notamment par son indicateur «Embauche des travailleurs», censé mesurer la difficulté d'embaucher, la rigidité de la durée du travail et la difficulté de licencier. Les auteurs présentent les résultats des études qui l'ont utilisé, l'ont insp...

Resumen Los autores reseñan las últimas novedades acerca del estudio Doing Business del Banco Mundial, haciendo hincapié en el indicador de las normas del trabajo: la dificultad de contratación, la rigidez de la jornada de trabajo y la dificultad y costo del despido de trabajadores. Primero pasan revista a los estudios que inspiraron la concepción...