Connectivity, Road Quality, and Jobs
Good road infrastructure decreases travel time and improves accessibility to urban areas. Improved rural-urban linkages could also affect rural employment through decreased time and travel costs. To study this link, the paper analyzes the impact of good quality roads on agricultural and non-agricultural jobs in Armenia, using different sets of data and different methodological approaches. To address endogeneity and reverse causality issues of road quality, the paper uses a historical instrumental variable obtained by digitizing historical roads which were mainly used for military purposes - from a military-topographic map of the Caucasus from 1903. The results show that a shorter distance to a good quality road has a statistically significant positive impact on overall non-agricultural employment for men and women, increasing the likelihood of cash-earning jobs for rural women and skilled manual and non-seasonal employment for rural men. People are more likely to work outside their villages and work for more hours if they have access to good quality roads. The results are robust from the analysis of Demographic and Health Survey as well as the Integrated Living Conditions Survey of Armenia.
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2024-07-17
|
| Subjects: | ROADS, INFRASTRUCTURE, RURAL EMPLOYMENT, HISTORICAL iNSTRUMENTAL VARIABLES (IV), DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, SDG 8, INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, SDG 9, AGRICULTURE, TRANSPORTATION ECONOMICS, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099439407102418802/IDU162e4ac57105bb14438185e3120f86105af03 https://hdl.handle.net/10986/41888 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|