Making Work Pay in Madagascar

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. With the objective of providing 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 Madagascar using data from the national accounts and household surveys from the years 1999, 2001, and 2005, a period characterized among others by a short but severe crisis which started at the end of 2001 and the subsequent economic rebound. This report is part of a series of studies conducted in the context of the World Bank’s research framework aiming to improve the understanding of the linkages among growth, labor, and poverty reduction.