Publications & Documents

OECD societies have become increasingly diverse in the past decades, offering new opportunities if diversity is properly managed. Ensuring that OECD countries are equipped to make the most of diversity by fully utilising all talent among diverse populations and promoting inclusive labour markets is a key challenge. Both businesses and governments are responding to this challenge with policies to strengthen the inclusion of diverse groups in the workplace and labour markets. This report considers five key groups who are widely considered disadvantaged in the labour market and society at large and who often face discrimination based on their group membership: immigrants, their descendants and ethnic minorities; LGBT people; older people; people with disabilities; and women. It assesses: i) how the inclusion of these groups in OECD labour markets has evolved over time, ii) the evidence on how diversity affects economic outcomes; and iii) which policies countries have implemented and what is known about their effectiveness.

This brief assesses migration policy reactions by OECD countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews the introduction and development of short-term policy responses from March to early June and identifies some of the possible forthcoming medium and longer-term challenges to migration management arising from this global health crisis.

This brief focuses on the contribution of migrant doctors and nurses to OECD health systems and how OECD countries have adapted the recognition of foreign credentials to mobilise additional doctors and nurses with foreign degrees in response to COVID-19. It also highlights the potential impact on countries of origin, some of which were already facing severe shortages of skilled health workers before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need for a global response to the global health worker shortage.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the gendered impacts of climate change in the Sahel. In particular, it explores the ways in which gender inequality is a critical factor in understanding vulnerability and resilience efforts concerning climate change. It shows that the current climate crisis is affecting livelihoods throughout the Sahel in pronounced ways. In a region highly dependent upon subsistence agriculture and pastoralist livelihoods, climate variability and environmental degradation have made such livelihoods difficult to sustain, the effects of which have broad ranging impacts on social and economic systems. Consequently, migration, livelihood adaptation, social unrest, and political instability emerge from the ecological challenges the Sahel is facing. Those with the resources to respond to and prepare for future climate events will be better equipped to navigate the climate crisis. Unfortunately, those resources are rarely equally distributed at the household, community, and state levels. In particular, gender inequalities within the Sahel pose a very real challenge for adaptation and resilience strategies as states and global institutions make interventions to support at risk populations. The paper then explores what development and state institutions are doing to resolve gender inequity through climate resilience policy, and where these efforts are falling short. The paper concludes with some strategies to improve opportunities for gender equity and climate resilience based on field research within the Sahel.

This report analyzes labor migration trends in Asia and puts them in the context of demographic and policy trends. It provides an overview of the population trends in different Asian countries and looks at policy settings in several sending and destination countries of labor migrants. It examines different approaches to effective labor migration management, including the imposition and regulation of fees and costs, and reviews the relevant policies in Asia and the Pacific. The report also looks forward to new approaches, examining the concept of skills mobility partnerships and how existing migration channels in Asia could be innovated using this concept. The chapters reflect the discussions that took place at the 'Ninth Roundtable on Labor Migration in Asia: Innovative Approaches for the Effective Management of Labor Migration in Asia,' held in Tokyo in February 2019. The event, co-organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Labour Organization, brought together regional experts and policy makers. The report provides the most up-to-date comparative statistics on labor migration flows in and from Asia. The introductory chapter reviews the recent regional trends and newly available data on the changes in the stock of Asian migrants, while two statistical annexes offer detailed country fact sheets and coverage of intra-Asia and cross-regional migration flows.