Warwick alumnus Dr Maurizio Bussolo returns to campus to speak about his work at the World Bank

Warwick alumnus Dr Maurizio Bussolo returns to campus to speak about his work at the World Bank

Warwick Economics alumnus Dr Maurizio Bussolo (PhD, 1997) returned to campus on 17th October at the invitation of Professor Sonia Bhalotra.

Now Deputy Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank in Washington DC, Dr Bussolo gave a lecture as part of the Institute for Advanced Studies InReach10x lunchtime seminar series.

In his presentation Dr Bussolo shared key findings from the latest regional economic update for South Asia. These authoritative World Bank reports are published twice a year and combine an overview of macro development trends and growth outlook in each region with a closer look at a specific theme.

The South Asia October 2024 report, Women, Jobs, and Growth, looks at the participation of women in the labour force in South Asian countries. Dr Bussolo explained that South Asia is already the region with the fastest growing economies, but if the untapped potential of women workers could be released, then even more growth could be achieved:-

• raising female labour force participation rates to those of men could increase per capita income by as much as one-half.
• structural changes accompanying development, such as urbanization, tertiarization and opening to trade, create opportunities for work for women in South Asia as shown by the lower wage gaps (vis-à-vis men) for women working in cities, or in the services sector, or in export-oriented industries.
• a common thread among these demand-side opportunities for increased female participation is the higher degree of competition. Firms facing a more competitive economic environment are less discriminatory towards female workers. However, the take up of these opportunities is constrained by several supply-side barriers: women are burdened by household and care tasks, face obstacles in their mobility, and face more insecurity than men.
• measures to further accelerate job creation (through more urbanization, and especially more opening up to trade, another key untapped potential for the region), as well as interventions to remove obstacles to women working and equalize gender rights would be effective if combined with a shift in social norms toward more acceptance of women’s engagement in the economy.

Dr Bussolo said that social norms are not immutable, they are indeed malleable and highlighted the shifts observed in Europe and the USA after World War Two, when women entered the workforce against conservative opposition. Even after the end of the war their participation remained high and was crucial to boosting growth. South Asia could achieve the same shifts, probably even faster.

The research underpinning the report highlighted that the literature on social norms has greatly advanced and we are now able to measure social norms in a much more precise way. Dr Bussolo explained that, for example, recent measurement exercises, undertaken as background research for the report, show that there is a large gap between what individuals believe is the appropriate behaviour in a certain social context, for example whether a women should accept a job for pay outside the house, and what individuals believe society believes about the same behaviour. This gap whereby personal beliefs are always less conservative than social expectations, provides a clear opportunity for change. Correcting this misperception of societal views – which are a key obstacle for women’s participation – and thus making them less restrictive can provide a boost to women’s economic engagement.

Lively discussion after the presentation had to be brought to an end by the need to free up the seminar room, but Dr Bussolo kindly stayed to meet current students and continue the conversation.

Reflecting briefly on the experience of returning to campus after twenty years, Dr Bussolo said that the university had changed a lot, but he was pleased to see that International House, where he had stayed as a postgraduate student, was still a popular hall of residence.

Dr Bussolo also visited the Economics Department where, during his PhD years, he was a tutorial fellow and taught many classes to economics students. He was particularly impressed by the excellence of current PhD students and hopes to remain in touch with some of them. One of the highlights of his visit was getting a pint and bangers and mash at the local Varsity pub with students and faculty. He is sure he will repeat this experience in the future.

Reflecting on the visit, Professor Bhalotra said she was pleased to see a large and innovative programme of research on women’s participation in the economy being led by Maurizio at the World Bank. She lauded the experimental research being done alongside scrutiny of large and often new data sets.

Sonia’s own research has contributed to our understanding of the manner in which social norms, markets, politics, law, technology, and trade influence son preference in fertility, violence against women, gender wage gaps in the labour market and the under-representation of women in leadership.