The Labor Market, Education and Armed Conflict in Tajikistan

Shortly following its independence in 1991, Tajikistan suffered a violent civil war. This study explores the effect of this conflict on education and labor market outcomes for men and women. The results are based on the data from the 2003 and 2007 Tajik Living Standards Measurement Surveys that were separated from the 1992–1998 Tajik civil war by five and nine years, respectively. The regression analysis that controls for the cohort and regional-level exposure points toward a persistent and lasting gap in the educational attainment by women who were of school age during the war and lived in the more conflict-affected regions as compared with women the same age who lived in the lesser affected regions and also to the older generation. These empirical results support the anecdotal and observational evidence about the decline in female educational attainment in Tajikistan. Interestingly, this group of young women is more likely to hold a job as compared with the rest of the analytical sample. Conditional on being employed, men and women in the more conflict-affected areas do not receive wages that are significantly different from wages received by men and women in the lesser affected areas.

• Olga Shemyakina

Shemyakina, Olga. "The Labor Market, Education, and Armed Conflict in Tajikistan." Policy Research Working Papers, World Bank Group (2011).

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• School of Economics