The Effect of Mobility and Transport on Labor Market Outcomes

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This research will provide a credible estimate of the impact of transport to work for men and women on both the supply and demand side of the labor market at the level of individuals and firms. Results from the study will shed light on barriers to firm performance in many parts of the world where female workers face mobility restrictions due to cultural or religious norms. Understanding such barriers is increasingly important as countries become more economically integrated and multinational firms take advantage of increasing openness in trade. In particular, there are significant possibilities for US and other foreign investors in countries such as Pakistan that have taken important steps to liberalize trade and investment regimes in recent years; however, realizing these opportunities will require sound policies to better develop human resources such as female access to education and jobs. Unless they are well understood and policy solutions identified, culturally-driven barriers such as those facing female workers have the potential to dampen investor interest and economic growth in such settings. This study tests whether affordable, safe transport services can improve women's access to opportunities in the workplace in Lahore, Pakistan. The proposed project builds on an existing Randomized Control Trial (RCT), which tests the overall impact of women's-only transport on women's mobility and labor force participation. Some areas have started to implement public transport interventions targeted at women, but the impact of such initiatives on economic outcomes has not yet been rigorously evaluated, in part due to the difficulty of identifying an appropriate comparison group or counterfactual. In this study, the researchers will randomly allocate residential and employment areas in the city into three groups: T1, which will have access to a women's-only transport service; T2, a mixed-gender transport service; and a control group. This allows the study to test the impact of transport on women's access to jobs; men's access to jobs; and to test whether women benefit more from a women's-only service. The NSF component of the project allows for surveys of employers in these areas at baseline and endline, allowing the researchers to test the impact of randomly allocated transport on employers. The firm survey component will substantially enhance the research outcomes and the public policy applicability of the findings from the project by shedding light on how firms are affected by random variation in transport for their employees. It will allow the researchers to analyze whether any change in labor supply represents a simple shift between treatment and control groups of women in the same jobs, or if firms are actually able to hire and retain more women as a result of the treatment.