The Effect of Mobility and Transport on Labor Market Outcomes

这项研究将从个人和公司两方面对男女上下班交通对劳动力市场供需两方面的影响作出可信的估计。这项研究的结果将揭示世界上许多地方女性员工由于文化或宗教规范而面临流动限制的企业绩效障碍。随着各国经济一体化程度的提高和跨国公司利用贸易日益开放的机会，了解这些壁垒变得越来越重要。特别是，美国和其他外国投资者在巴基斯坦等国家有很大的可能性，这些国家近年来采取了重要步骤，使贸易和投资制度自由化；然而，实现这些机会需要健全的政策来更好地开发人力资源，例如女性受教育和就业的机会。除非很好地理解这些障碍，并确定政策解决方案，否则，文化驱动的障碍（如女性工人面临的障碍）有可能抑制此类环境中的投资者兴趣和经济增长。本研究在巴基斯坦拉合尔检验负担得起的、安全的交通服务是否能改善妇女在工作场所获得机会的机会。拟议的项目以现有的随机对照试验（RCT）为基础，该试验测试了女性专用交通工具对女性流动性和劳动力参与的总体影响。一些地区已开始实施针对妇女的公共交通干预措施，但这些举措对经济成果的影响尚未得到严格评价，部分原因是难以确定适当的比较组或反事实。在这项研究中，研究人员将随机将城市中的居住和就业区域分为三组：T1组，将使用女性专用交通服务；T2是一项男女混合交通服务；还有一个对照组。这使得这项研究能够测试交通对妇女就业机会的影响；男性获得工作的机会；并测试女性是否从女性专属服务中获益更多。该项目的NSF部分允许在基线和终点对这些地区的雇主进行调查，使研究人员能够测试随机分配交通对雇主的影响。公司调查部分将通过揭示公司如何受到员工交通随机变化的影响，大大提高研究成果和项目结果的公共政策适用性。这将使研究人员能够分析劳动力供给的任何变化是否代表了从事相同工作的实验组和对照组女性之间的简单转变，或者公司是否由于这种待遇而实际上能够雇用和留住更多的女性。

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.