Unemployment Duration in Bolivian Urban Area: An Analysis of Socioeconomic Characteristics and Educational Level

Abstract

This paper explores the unemployment duration in Bolivia utilizing data from the household surveys MECOVI. The main objective of the paper is to study the characteristics of unemployment duration and its determinants; to this aim we apply an exploratory analysis of unemployment duration and unemployment itself. We also apply stochastic dominance and count models the poisson and negative binomial kind.

The exploratory and stochastic dominance analysis showed that the mean of unemployment duration reduced in Bolivia over the period 1999-2003. Based on the use of stochastic dominance techniques we could find clear evidence of improvement in welfare terms, measured by unemployment duration over the period 1999-2003, nevertheless it's showed an increase on short term unemployment and a decrease on long term unemployment.

Using count models we could establish that age, sex and higher educational levels increase the unemployment duration in Bolivia, while the indigenous condition reduce it and income levels have a neutral effect. Compared to other countries, people with higher educational levels have higher unemployment duration this due to the characteristics of Bolivian labor market demand that present lower reserve salaries.

Note: Downloadable document is in Spanish.

Keywords: unemployment duration, stochastic dominance, count models

JEL Classification: J64, C41