Labor and Migration: Essays on Opportunities, Vulnerabilities, and Worker Agency in Emerging Markets

Abstract

Creating suitable employment opportunities while ensuring safe working conditions is one of the most significant challenges facing labor markets of emerging economies in the Global South. Workers in these countries are amongst the most vulnerable and at-risk populations, whether they choose to remain and work in their countries of origin or migrate to other destinations. My dissertation focuses on studying labor markets characteristics in the context of two contemporary phenomena confronting populous, low-income countries, namely, large scale labor migration and employment relations in global supply chains. In the first chapter, I estimate the local labor market and socio-economic spillover effects of large-scale migration from Bangladesh on non-migrant households living in migrant-prone regions. My results show a significant, positive but relatively small impact on hours worked and household income with limited effects on other socio-economic outcomes. In the next chapter, I address the health and economic risk exposure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic for low and middle-income countries as a result of their exposure to migration. We find that exposure to migration is a strong predictor for spatial variation of the effects of COVID-19. Finally, in my third essay, I study the effectiveness of worker-management committees to meaningfully engage worker voice that can help to address non-compliance with health, safety, and labor issues in factories that engage in low-wage, manufacturing factory work. I find that worker-management committees with union representation and fair electoral processes have a positive, significant effect on addressing such compliance issues. However, the effectiveness of these structures are limited by the broader institutional context of the states in which they operate. My research deepens our understanding of the challenges facing labor markets in developing countries with important implications for future policy measures in these contexts.