Employment Opportunity Indicator

Description

This indicator measures a country government’s commitment to ending slavery and forced labor, preventing employment discrimination, and protecting the rights of workers and people with disabilities.

Relationship to Growth & Poverty Reduction

IV. UCLA’s WORLD Policy Analysis Center’s data on Disability Rights and Employment Discrimination.

This indicator encourages governments to invest in policies that drive economic growth and poverty reduction by supporting policies that ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to earn a fair wage in four areas: employment discrimination, disability rights, forced labor, and the ability of civil society organizations (CSOs) to start-up and shutdown.71 Broadly, employment discrimination increases poverty through denied employment and social exclusion, while equality of employment opportunities can drive economic growth and social inclusion.72 The inclusion of people with disabilities in the economy and employment opportunities is key to robust and inclusive economic growth.73 This is particular critical in developing countries, as people with disabilities make up a disproportionate share of the global poor and supporting the rights of these groups is a crucial component of poverty reduction.74 Forced labor impedes the ability of individuals to earn a fair wage and exacerbates poverty such as by keeping individuals in debt bondage, preventing them from being able to earn anything or ever become free.75 CSOs are included because they are instrumental in ensuring that de jure employment protections and other laws are enforced.76

Methodology

WORLD Policy Analysis Center Methodology: WORLD regularly reviews the laws and constitutions of countries to determine whether certain rights are protected.

Disability Rights: From WORLD’s disability dataset, MCC uses the following seven questions. These questions are coded as binary, where a legal right provides countries with one point, and anything less gives zero points. These questions are then averaged so that each country is given a sub-score for disability rights between 0 and 1 that represents the share of rights protected.

1. Does the constitution explicitly guarantee equality or non-discrimination for persons with disabilities? (“Guaranteed right” = 1, all else = 0)
2. Does the constitution explicitly require schools or educational institutions to be physically accessible? (“School accessibility explicitly guaranteed” = 1, all else = 0)
3. Does the constitution explicitly guarantee the right to work for adults with disabilities? (“Guaranteed right” or “Work rights generally guaranteed and disability discrimination prohibited” = 1, all else = 0)
4. Are employers required to guarantee reasonable accommodation to workers with disabilities? (“Yes” = 1, all else = 0)
5. Does the constitution explicitly require public places and/or public transportation to be physically accessible? (“Accessibility explicitly guaranteed in both public places and public transportation” or “Accessibility guaranteed in one area” = 1, all else = 0)
6. Is disability-based discrimination prohibited through the completion of secondary education? (“Discrimination broadly prohibited) = 1, all else = 0)
7. What is the guaranteed level of inclusion through the completion of secondary education for students with disabilities? (“Integration in mainstream schools and guaranteed support”, “Integration in mainstream schools”, and “Guaranteed, unclear level of integration” = 1, all else = 0)

Employment Discrimination: From the WORLD dataset on Employment Discrimination, MCC uses the following questions:

1. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on disability?
2. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on religion?
3. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on race/ethnicity?
4. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on gender identity?
5. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on political affiliation?
6. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on social class?
7. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on age?
8. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on marital status?
9. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on maternal status?
10. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on paternal status?
11. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on migrant status?
12. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on foreign national origin?
13. Is there at least some explicit legislative prohibition of workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation?

Each of these responses are coded into binary variables (1 for “yes” to any protection for each group in a question (UCLA codes a “5” in their data set as a “yes”) and 0 for “no” or if only some of the groups in question are protected) and then averaged (i.e. all of the 1’s are added together and then divided by 13). This means that the resulting employment discrimination sub-indicator is the percentage of protected classes that are covered by some explicit legal provision prohibiting discrimination against them in a given country.

V. The Varieties of Democracy Institute’s (V-Dem) data on Civil Society Organization Start-Up and Shutdown, and on the prevalence of forced labor for men and women.

V-Dem Methodology: V-dem surveys a wide range of experts annually, then aggregates their responses into a single score.

Forced Labor: The forced labor sub-indicator (v2xcl_slave) is an average of the prevalence of forced labor and involuntary servitude for men and women. V-Dem defines forced labor as follows: “Involuntary servitude occurs when an adult is unable to quit a job s/he desires to leave — not by reason of economic necessity but rather by reason of employer’s coercion. This includes labor camps but not work or service which forms part of normal civic obligations such as conscription or employment in command economies.”

Civil Society Organizations: The civil society organization start-up and shutdown data are from the V-dem data on CSO Entry and Exit (v2cseeorgs). This sub-indicator measures the extent to which the government achieves control over entry and exit by civil society organizations (CSOs) into public life. CSOs include, but are not limited to, interest groups, labor unions, spiritual organizations if they are engaged in civic or political activities, social movements, professional associations, charities, and other non-governmental organizations.

MCC Methodology

MCC’s Employment Opportunity Score = [ 0.25 x (Average Disability Rights) ] + [ 0.25 x (Average Employment Rights) ] + [ 0.25 x (Normalized Forced Labor) ] + [ 0.25 x (Normalized CSO Entry and Exit) ]

The Employment Opportunity indicator is calculated as an average of four sub-indicators: Disability Rights, Employment Rights, Forced Labor, and CSO Entry and Exit. First, the different questions for Disability Rights and Employment Rights are aggregated together. Second, all four sub sources are normalized using percentile rank for their income group to a scale between 0 and 1, then the four components are averaged together. If any components are missing for a particular country the score is the average of the components that are not missing. If all components are missing the indicator is considered missing and a country will receive and N/A on the indicator. Score years are labeled based on the year of the V-Dem data used. For FY25 the scores are labeled as 2023.

First, the disability rights and employment rights sub-indicators are aggregated by averaging the scores on each of the questions (i.e. the percentage of questions where rights are guaranteed in the law). So, if a country has protections for 11 of the 13 groups listed under disability rights, they will receive a score of approximately 0.846 on this component. (11 ÷ 13 ≈ 0.846; 11 is 84.6% of 13).

• Average Disability Rights = (Number of questions where there is a guaranteed right)/7
• Average Employment Rights = (Number of questions where there is an employment protection in law)/12

For example, if a country has a guaranteed constitutional right to non-discrimination for persons with disabilities, and a constitutionally guaranteed right to work for people with disabilities, but no other rights, they would have 2 out of 7 questions with a legal right. This means their score would be 2÷7 or 0.2857 on this component.

Then all four components are normalized using percentile ranks as described by the equation below

• Normalized Sub-Component = (Number of countries scoring below Country X on Sub-Component data in the income group) ÷ (Number of Countries scoring equal to or greater than Country X on Sub-Component data in the income group + Number of countries scoring below Country X on Sub-Component data in the income group)

For example, to calculate a give country X’s score, MCC first finds the number of countries that score worse than that country in the income pool, and the number of countries that have the same or better score than country X on the sub-source. MCC then divides the number of countries below by the sum of the number of countries below and the number of countries equal or above. Missing values are not included in these calculations. Finally, MCC averages the normalized values for each source together. If any sub-component is missing, the average normalized score for the other is used, but if all are missing the indicator is considered missing and assigned an “N/A”.

In FY25 MCC revised its methodology for this indicator to address issues of missing data. As a result, the scores from FY25 are not comparable to scores from FY24 and earlier.

Source

• UCLA’s WORLD Policy Analysis Center’s data on Disability Rights and Employment Discrimination (UCLA)

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  MCC uses 20 questions related to disability rights and employment discrimination from this data source.

• Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)

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