Sifting through the Data: Labor Markets in Haiti through a Turbulent Decade (2001–2012)
- Haiti’s labor markets are characterized by continuity over the period 2001-2012, despite the 2010 earthquake.
- Self-employment in low-productivity sectors remains the norm outside the farm sector.
- The share of workers in non-primary informal activities has decreased, but this has not translated into an expansion of the formal private sector, but into the swelling of the public sector and NGOs.
- The significant rise in employment rates in recent years was driven mainly by young people taking unpaid work in family businesses.
- There is a stable premium on education and an overall reduction of the wage gap, except in low-productivity sectors where this gap increased over the period to 60 percent.
This paper contributes to filling the gap in labor analysis in Haiti, which has been constrained by the dearth of data and the focus on measuring the impact of the 2010 earthquake. It provides an overview of Haiti’s labor markets and the determinants of labor income over a decade, focusing on growing urban areas. The study harmonizes three household surveys conducted between 2001 and 2012, offering new insights into the development of labor markets in a turbulent decade marked by the political crisis of 2004 and the earthquake of 2010. Despite the earthquake, the analysis reveals that Haiti’s labor markets are characterized by continuity over the period, with defining features remaining largely unchanged.
How to cite
World Bank, 2016, Sifting through the Data: Labor Markets in Haiti through a Turbulent Decade (2001–2012), accessed via HaitiDocs, https://www.haitidocs.org/doc/wb-2016-sifting-through-data-labor-markets