A vast literature shows the importance of socioemotional skills in earnings and employment, but whether they matter in getting hired remains unanswered. This study seeks to address this question and further investigates whether socioemotional skill signals in job applicants' resumes have the...

This thematic note is part of a series being developed to inform the 2024-30 WBG Gender Strategy. It provides a summary of existing evidence in applying a social norms lens to development policy, including guidance on defining, measuring, and changing social norms, with specific guidance for WBG...

The Care category covers interventions and mandates that reduce the care burden onwomen and, consequently, enable them to participate asactive economic agents. For the review, care responsibilities are defined as activitiesthat keep women engaged in looking after members of theirhousehold....

Whether and the extent to which social norms matter for women's labor force participation has been shown to vary by context. This paper presents rigorous evidence on how these relationships hold in the case of Nepal, where female labor force participation remains among the lowest in the world....

Despite decades of economic growth, gender disparities in South Asia remain remarkably high. Although not the only one, social norms are a crucial driver of various gender outcomes, including differential economic participation. Using repeated cross-sectional data from nationally representative...

This paper uses household surveys from 89 countries to look at gender differences in poverty in the developing world. In the absence of individual-level poverty data, the paper looks at what can we learn in terms of gender differences by looking at the available individual and household level...

The report aims to meet two broad objectives: (a) enhance knowledge about the current state of existing social safety nets (SSNs) and assess their effectiveness in responding to new and emerging challenges to the poor and vulnerable in the region by bringing together new evidence, data, and...

The Arab Spring and subsequent transitions provide opportunities for better governance, economies free of cronyism and more inclusive models of growth. Social Safety Nets (SSN) will be a key component of building more inclusive economies and societies. And here too there are grounds for...

The Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region has been hit by a crisis on multiple fronts. Countries in ECA are facing major, interrelated, external macro-financial shocks. The first is the global growth slowdown leading to falling export market demand. In addition, the prospects for inflows of...

This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students' literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the...