Call for papers
Conference: Better Jobs for Development


The 3rd Jobs and Development conference will be held in Warsaw on 21-22 May 2020. Deadline for submissions is 20 January 2020. Update: Conference rescheduled to be held online on 1-4 September 2020.

Update from the organizers, 25 June 2020:
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we are rescheduling the 3rd Annual IZA/World Bank/NJD/UNU-WIDER Jobs and Development Conference 'Better Jobs for Development' to be held online on September 1-4, 2020. The safety of our attendees is a top priority. In light of the health safety recommendations, we will deliver our 3rd annual Conference as a digital event, in lieu of an in-person event. We look forward to bringing together economists from around the globe in this new virtual format to expand the frontiers of global knowledge around jobs and advance the discussion on the most effective policies.

For the additional call for papers on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on labor market outcomes, occupational health and development (deadline: 10 July 2020), see here.

Update from the organizers, 24 March 2020:
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we are rescheduling the 3rd Annual IZA/World Bank/NJD/UNU-WIDER Jobs and Development Conference ‘Better Jobs for Development’ to be held in Warsaw, Poland, to 3-4 September 2020. We feel that this is the most prudent action we can take until the health crisis clarifies and hopefully subsides. We’ll be monitoring the situation carefully to ensure that the conference is safe for individual and public health. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Please take care, follow all proper public health advisories and stay well.

Following the successes of the 2016, 2018 and 2019 Jobs and Development Conferences in Washington DC and Bogotá, the World Bank in collaboration with IZA (Institute of Labor Economics), the Network on Jobs and Development and UNU-WIDER are organizing a follow up conference focused on 'Better Jobs for Development'.

The two-day format will feature keynote speeches, a policy panel, and about 80 paper presentations in parallel sessions. The event will focus on policy-relevant research, applicable to identifying solutions to jobs challenges in low and middle income countries.

The organizers are interested in papers that focus on:

  • Modeling developing countries’ labor markets: segmented and stratified markets
  • Changing global value chains and their effect on jobs
  • Market-relevant education and skills development
  • Institutions, norms and female employment
  • Coping with low earnings and improving workers’ protections
  • Policies for increasing the quality of jobs
  • Measuring the quality of jobs

Interested applicants wishing to present original research should submit full papers or extended abstracts by January 20, 2020 using the online application form. Notifications on contributed papers will be sent by February 29, 2020. We strongly encourage submission of full papers. For extended abstracts, full paper submission is due April 1, 2020.

Any queries can be emailed to IZA Senior Event Manager Ms. Viola Hartmann at hartmann@iza.org.

See full call for papers