Antigua and Barbuda is participating in a major labour market study covering 15 Caribbean nations. The Gender Differential Labour Market Impact Study is said to be the first comprehensive data-gathering exercise in the Caribbean addressing workplace issues such as equity and fairness, workplace representation, employment security and labour administration.
The research aims to provide an avenue to build an understanding on the Labour market dynamics in the region as well as fill a critical gap in understanding the changing nature of the Caribbean working environment and facilitate the design of policies that would support social and economic development. Another goal of the study is to allow for both county-specific and region analysis of the world of work dynamics.
The study, which was commissioned earlier this year by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), is being conducted by the Cipriani College of Labour and Cooperative Studies. Director of the College, Dr. Andere Vincent says, “Too often, researchers and policymakers are attempting to respond to the real challenges of Caribbean development in the world of work and find themselves having to make inferences based on data sets that are either from regions unrelated to the Caribbean or data sets that combine the Caribbean with Latin America, neither of which is satisfactory, given the uniqueness of this region.”
Senior Fellow of Labour Studies at Cipriani College, Trevor Johnson, details some specific areas of focus for the research. “It is a project that is looking at the whole aspect of disruptions and resilience in the Caribbean region and looking at how each individual territory would have dealt with these disruptions.” According to Johnson, such disruptions include the fallout from the COVID-19 Pandemic and natural disasters such as adverse weather and volcanic activity.
The project will deploy multiple research methods including a targeted survey of more than 3000 respondents across the 15 CDB Borrowing Member Countries; focus groups consisting of male and female workers – capturing varied experiences across gender; businesses and civil society focus groups; and key informant interviews.
The first data set from the research is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2024.
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