Making Work Pay in Bangladesh

This title analyzes the roles of labor markets, employment, productivity, and labor income in promoting poverty reduction and shared growth in Bangladesh.Poor people derive most of their income from work; however, there is insufficient understanding of the role of employment and earnings as a linkage between growth and poverty reduction, especially in low income countries. To provide inputs into the policy discussion on how to enhance poverty reduction through increased employment and earnings for given growth levels, this study explores this linkage in the case of Bangladesh.The study provides a background discussion of poverty, reform, and growth in Bangladesh, followed by an overview of the labor market: demographies, the institutional structure of the labor market, and the labor market indicators. A poverty profile of the labor market is developed, including a discussion of the income sources and a decomposition of poverty reduction and growth. Other issues discussed include rural versus urban conditions; men, women, and children in the labor market; self-employment and household employment; and, socioeconomic inequalities.