Impact of Labour Intensive Public Works on Youth Employment and Seasonal Migration: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

The study uses a sample of 3,876 youths to estimate the impact of Ghana’s Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) program on youth employment and seasonal migration using the ‘doubly-robust’ estimator that models both the treatment assignment and the outcome variable within the same framework. The data was collected in 2015 as part of the program’s impact evaluation agenda. Our results show that the project significantly increased youth employment but was less impactful on seasonal youth migration. Thus, we recommend that the labour intensive public works program should be expanded to capture more youths to increase youth employment in the country.

Keywords: Public Works; Youth Employment; Seasonal Migration; Public Infrastructure

JEL Classification: J61, J62, J68, O22, Q35