Conference Agenda

As the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic remain evident, governments are intensifying social support packages to prevent households from sliding into poverty. In this paper, we examine the impact of government support programs provided during the COVID-19 pandemic on household income in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We seek to investigate whether the existing social programs in Egypt and Jordan are sufficient to protect individuals from being pushed below the poverty line. Previous studies on the subject matter are minimal within the developing countries and particularly in the MENA region although it records alarming figures for extreme poverty. Not enough attention is given to the socio-economic crises that the MENA region countries are encountering and not enough empirical research has been directed to antipoverty programs, mainly governmental programs, and their success or failure in defeating poverty and supporting the poor in any of the region’s countries. Empirical studies on the MENA region, even those implemented after the pandemic, do not target the impact of government support programs on income and poverty. For this purpose, we utilize a Propensity Score Matching approach (PSM) to control for selection bias and capture the causal effect. We use a unique panel dataset from the Economic Research Forum (ERF) COVID-19 MENA Monitor survey. Our empirical findings suggest that the average treatment effect of the government social support programs on household income is negative and significant across both countries. This reveals that COVID-19 has caused a sharp decline in income levels across households, and the existing social protection schemes were not sufficient to offset the negative income shock. Hence, the paper provides governments with empirical analysis to reconsider their existing social support programs aimed at poverty prevention.

South Africa exhibits one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, which was only aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the far-reaching and progressive nature of the country’s social protection system, prior to the pandemic there was no targeted income support to the working-age population. The government’s introduction of the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant – targeted at the unemployed – played an important role in addressing this hole in the safety net. Given the country’s extent of unemployment, the transfer provided income support to millions of vulnerable, previously unreached individuals in a relatively short amount of time. Importantly, in a crisis context, anti-poverty programmes and economic recovery policy need not be mutually exclusive. As such, despite not being its primary aim, it is plausible that the SRD grant played an important role in aiding labour market recovery. At the time of writing, however, no causal evidence exists on the effects of the grant on any outcome. Such effects may vary from those of pre-existing grants which are characterised by markedly different eligibility criteria.

In this paper, we present the first estimates of the causal effects of receipt of the grant on several labour market outcomes. Our identification employs a semi-parametric, doubly robust, dynamic difference-in-differences estimator on representative panel labour force data collected in 2020 and 2021 and the exploitation of a credible proxy receipt identifier in the data. Despite the relatively small size of the transfer, we find robust evidence of notable labour market effects. Our preferred models suggest that grant receipt increased mean employment probabilities by 3 percentage points. Effect heterogeneity estimates show this effect was driven by positive effects on wage and formal sector employment. Smaller effects are also estimated for the probabilities on self-employment, becoming an employer, and informal sector employment. Notably, employment effects all vary by duration of receipt, with larger short-term effects which appear to reduce with additional exposure. Small, positive effects on the probability of trying to start a business are also found, but no effects on job search. These results are strongly robust to alternative control group compositions and alternative estimands which seek to address the validity of the design.

Together, these findings provide evidence on the potential for cash transfers to serve a multi-purpose role of providing income relief as well as enabling a path towards more favourable labour market outcomes during a crisis in developing countries.

Introduction

We analyse precarity in Australia and Canada during the turbulent times of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. We compare academics’ experiences as workers facing job insecurity and related stress in each country. Both are liberal market economies (LMEs). However, Australia’s higher education (HE) has been the subject of more radical neoliberal transformations than Canada’s in terms of funding and work in HE.

When explaining cross-national differences, we consider the effects of “academic capitalism” including marketization, commercialization and competition for students’ tuition fees. “Academic capitalism” describes the context of universities that induces them to act like rival enterprises that seek to maximize their reputation and revenues rather than as disinterested, public-spirited institutions. We also consider the role of industrial-relations and labour-market institutions including collective bargaining, unions, workers’ protests and solidarity-based responses.

Research Question

Our main research question examines to what extent the differences between these two LMEs’ institutions influenced the impacts on academics, specifically with regard to precarity and associated stress in in Australia and Canada.

Methodology

Our methodology draws on two cross-national sources of survey data of academic workers (N=2,888) across 14 comparable universities (seven in each country). We compare academics’ experiences with precarity and related stress in both countries.

Contribution to Literature

We contribute to the literature on academic capitalism, which hitherto has been published mainly in HE domains. We also contribute to the comparative employment-relations literature by contrasting Australia and Canada, two countries that in many ways are similar LMEs. The industrial-relations regulatory context in Canada has provided more stable forms of union security to HE workers that has facilitated protests and solidarity-based responses. The lack of such security in Australia has hampered unions from pushing back against the spread of neoliberalization in HE.

Findings

We find that academics in Australia experienced more job insecurity and related stress than those in Canada. Australian universities’ reliance on volatile funding from tuition fees, especially from international students, played a key role in explaining the contrasts including the greater reliance on contingent “casual” academics in Australia. Casuals were more negatively impacted than “permanent” academics in both countries; yet again, they fared relatively better in Canada than in Australia.

We offer a critique of HE policy that has reoriented the HE industry towards a deepening reliance on markets. We also suggest alternative paths to foster decent work as well as the quality and accessibility of HE in both countries.

Introduction

Non-standard work arrangements are a significant part of national economies worldwide as algorithms and contracting practices enable recruitment of many types of contingent workers. New type of workplaces like digital platforms exemplify this trend even as traditional workplaces undergo restructuring of worker roles. The labor response to these changes is studied through the prism of trade unions and grassroots unions. There is a compelling need to analyze other forms of responses such as mutual aid societies especially since they have been a sustained form of worker organization of non-standard work arrangements such as freelance workers for decades. The covid-19 pandemic brought out a new context for mutual aid societies in enabling worker organization and collectivisation.

Research questions

In this context, this study seeks to understand how mutualism has used organization and strategies to provide social protection for freelance workers in the United States. The questions that are of interest are: how does mutualism work in the context of non-standard workers in terms of philosophy of mobilization and organization? What are the workplace and social rights that are of interest to such workers and what are the strategies used to achieve them? What are the implications of this case for policy making and coalition among other types of workers?

Methodology

The study uses the case of Freelancers Union in the United States as a case to answer these questions. Data is collected from archival sources to understand the philosophy of mutualism. On the case study, the researchers examine online news media reports and database of print and online news about the organization, union action, direct quotes and legal cases. Semi-structured interviews are done with experts through snowball sampling to contextualize the case in historical and contemporary forms.

Contribution to literature and Findings

The study argues that mutual aid societies work with associational power of workers and collectivise based on geography rather than workplace. The workplace rights they are most interested in are pay, tax benefits and reclassification. The social rights that are of significance are healthcare, unemployment and housing. They use the strategies of mutual insurance and litigation over collective bargaining. Mutual aid societies call for policy intervention in areas such as worker classification, tax benefits and social enterprise funding and new forms of alliances with traditional unions.