This paper assesses the reliability and validity of cognitive and socioemotional skills measures and investigates the correlation between schooling, skills acquisition, and labor earnings. The primary data from Pakistan incorporates two innovations related to measurement and sampling. On measurement, the paper develops and implements a battery of instruments intended to capture cognitive and socioemotional skills among young adults. On sampling, the paper uses a panel that follows respondents from their original rural locations in 2003 to their residences in 2018, a period over which 38 percent of the respondents left their native villages. In terms of their validity and reliability, our skills measures compare favorably to previous measurement attempts in low- and middle-income countries. The following are documented in the data: (a) more years of schooling are correlated with higher cognitive and socioemotional skills; (b) labor earnings are correlated with cognitive and socioemotional skills as well as years of schooling; and (c) the earnings-skills correlations depend on respondents’ migration status. The magnitudes of the correlations between schooling and skills on the one hand and earnings and skills on the other are consistent with a widespread concern that such skills are underproduced in the schooling system.

This toolkit highlights World Bank Group (WBG) commitments relevant to women and girls with disabilities, examples of law and policy reform, and key barriers and solutions across several World Bank sectors, and it includes a checklist for Task Team Leaders (TTLs) to use throughout the project cycle. TTLs will benefit from the toolkit’s key questions and suggested indicators aimed to increase inclusion of women and girls with disabilities across WBG projects and a set of resources for additional support. It addresses measures to promote the socioeconomic inclusion of women with disabilities across several critical sectors for World Bank operations: education; employment and entrepreneurship; social protection; gender based violence; health; digital development; water and sanitation; transportation and urban planning; fragility, conflict, violence; and disaster risk management. It seeks to support WBG task teams in inclusive approaches to the design, implementation, and evaluation of all projects to better support women and girls with disabilities and address their intersectional needs.

This report estimates the size of the South African care economy through an analysis of the number of existing and potential future job opportunities in the sector. It also outlines the potential impact of investment into the care economy including economic impact, impact on beneficiaries, and impact on the young people who could access the job opportunities together with the broader societal impacts.

This Knowledge Brief shares lessons on how the World Bank’s Promoting Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Social Protection and Employment Programs project team in Haiti worked to enhance the identification of persons with disabilities and provide them with skills for service sector jobs. The Brief highlights the importance of focusing on demand-driven skills, working with mainstream training providers, and proactive outreach to employers.

This World Bank report draws on data from the most recent Nigeria General Household Survey to makes five critical contributions towards improving gender inclusion in Nigeria: (1) highlighting the gender gaps in labor force participation; (2) documenting the magnitude and drivers of the gender gaps in key economic sectors; (3) diving deep into three contextual constraints: land, livestock, and occupational segregation; (4) measuring the costs of the gender gaps; and (5) offering policy and programming recommendations of innovative options to close the gender gaps.

The study draws on youth and employer survey results to document the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people in Jordan and Palestine, with an emphasis on vulnerable youth including refugees in Jordan, youth in Gaza, and young women. Key topics include:

• Youth employment trajectories during the pandemic
• Youth interest in virtual freelancing jobs
• Employer hiring projections and demand for skills
• Promising sectors for youth employment during the COVID-19 recovery

This note focuses on the linguistic challenges many faces as they try to acclimate to life abroad when their native language is no longer dominant in their surroundings. From designing curricula around the needs of families to recognizing and accounting for dialects when sharing resources or providing services, this note takes an in-depth look at how to use #2GenImm approaches to help families overcome the language barrier.

This report outlines the great potential for feminist digital activism to catalyze transformative shifts in thinking and behavior. It analyzes how hashtag campaigns, organized groups and individual activists post-feminist content online to change attitudes, behavior, and influence policies and laws. Finally, the report considers how online and offline activism can bolster one another.

This UNDP report aims to understand the needs of LGBTI young people and Young Key Populations (YKP) in the AIDS response in the Asia-Pacific region, in their quest for more secure digital spaces and improved experiences of digital citizenship. The assessment also acts as guidance material for Youth-led organizations (Youth Lead and Y-Peer) to develop their own tools and resources for their communities and support grassroot level organizations to build online platforms for advocacy.

This document is an overview of the lessons learned from an IFAD project on scaling up rural youth access to inclusive financial services for entrepreneurship and employment implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It contributes to shaping regional policy dialogues and strategies for supporting youth integration in the rural development space and will inform the design of future youth projects in IFAD.

This study maps the state of skill development of indigenous children, youth and adults throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It identifies the main challenges to skills development among LACs indigenous peoples at the five life stages infancy/early childhood, childhood and preadolescence, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. It summarizes evidence-based policies and programs that address access and achievement gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous children, youth, and adults gasp that affect the development of lifelong skills and participation in the labor market. Based on the analysis, we highlight lessons learned and recommend lines of action.

This paper presents evidence on how social protection and especially non-contributory cash transfers impact on individuals and households in low- and middle-income countries. The paper provides guidance on what policies, programming and interventions have been considered effective for Sida’s objective of creating better living conditions for people living in poverty and oppression.

This report provides an overview of the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. It presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they progress through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. Finally, the report identifies the barriers to women’s economic participation and encourages the reform of discriminatory laws.

A rapidly urbanizing world presents enormous economic opportunities for the poor and vulnerable but also significant barriers to economic inclusion. This report provides an overview of the urban context and challenges, describes a framework for fostering urban economic inclusion, and examines the current landscape of economic inclusion programs, starting with the policy impetus driving their emergence.

Buildher aims to equip women in Kenya with accredited construction skills, which are expected to allow beneficiaries to have greater financial independence and prosperity, to change male attitudes and to promote gender equality within the construction industry.

This report explores how a well-being approach can help build back better and identifies common well-being priorities for recovery. The proposed solutions include the need to: increase job and financial security of households, particularly of those most affected by the crisis; promote equality of opportunity and mitigate the scarring effects of the crisis on the most vulnerable individuals and workers, with a focus on youth, women and the low-skilled; lift the burden of poor physical and mental health; take decisive action on climate change and environmental degradation, and reinforce trust in others and public institutions as the basis for greater social cohesion in the future.

This DOT report provides an overview of DOT’s achievements and learnings in Lebanon during 2021. The report also provides a visual presentation of DOT’s achievements: more than 5,672 beneficiaries, more than 456 people with disabilities became digitally abled and more than 3,500 young girls and women entered productive employment. It concludes that while digitalization poses some challenges, it also creates opportunities to promote more inclusive and sustainable solutions to empower vulnerable youth.

This research examines a specific aspect of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program, which is the provision of career and technical education (CTE) opportunities for program participants. The report relies on administrative data collected from all programs pertaining to their operations in 2017 and 2018, as well as interviews with select program staff in 2019. In this report, the authors highlight promising practices in CTE provision found in the literature. The report discusses implications and future considerations as more ChalleNGe sites consider introducing CTE into their programming and as more states consider establishing Job ChalleNGe, which provides post-secondary education and training to ChalleNGe graduates.

This report presents the findings of a survey of young people—the survey aimed at understanding the attitudes of youth towards the future of work. The results show that young people are agents of change, ready to stand up for their future and the planet.