Labour 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 labour market outcomes for men and women. The study uses the 2003 and 2007 Tajik Living Standards Measurement Surveys and employs the regional and cohort-level exposures to the conflict to identify these relationships. The results suggest that the conflict had a large and lasting impact on education. In the conflict affected regions, women who were of school age during the war are significantly less likely to complete both nine and eleven years of schooling as compared to women of the similar age from the lesser affected areas. Thus, the gap in education created during the war may have become permanent. Further, these young women were also more likely to have held a job in the last 14 days. The increased workforce participation among young women signals that creation of new local jobs is likely to be welcomed by women if the government were to pursue job-creating policies. 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.