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NGO Employments and Job Preferences of Youth: Evidence from Bangladesh

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Economic and Social Development of Bangladesh

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Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have flourished in Bangladesh and continue to have huge potential to provide employment opportunities for the country’s youth. However, the NGO sector faces high employee turnover rates and has difficulty in attracting qualified young people. In this chapter, we exploit the survey on young NGO staff in Bangladesh that allows us understand their job satisfaction as well as job preferences. Our empirical analyses reveal that job satisfaction is positively related to wages, gender, employment status, work location, and NGO sizes. The results from discrete choice experiments (DCEs) suggest that the most valued job attribute among youth are the provision of support for education and upgrading qualifications, and provision for health insurance. Better understanding of job preferences will enhance the employment and productivity of NGOs.

This is an extensively revised version of the paper “Youth Employment and NGOs: Evidence from Bangladesh” (Murata and Nishimura 2016). We would like to thank Young Consultants for their excellent work in conducting surveys in Bangladesh. The views expressed in this chapter and any errors are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Young Consultants and the team conducted surveys in 20 NGOs in Bangladesh. These NGOs’ branch office locations are as follows: BRAC (Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet); BURO Bangladesh (Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet); Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (Rajshahi, Sylhet); Jagaroni Chakra Foundation (Khulna); Uddipon (Chittagong, Rajshahi); Padakhep Manabik Unnayan Kendra (Sylhet); NGO Forum (Sylhet); Rural Reconstruction Foundation (Khulna); Rupantor (Khulna); Gram Unnayan Karma (Rajshahi); Voluntary Association for Rural Development (Sylhet); Reliant Women Development Organization (Sylhet); Community Development Centre (Chittagong); Mamata (Chittagong); Sajida Foundation (Dhaka); Prodipon (Khulna); Proyas (Rajshahi); Friends in Village Development Bangladesh (Sylhet); Shushilan (Khulna); and Ghashful (Chittagong).

  2. 2.

    NGO sizes categories were decided depending on the number of branch offices as follows: (1) large NGOs with more than 1000 branch offices (i.e. BRAC); (2) medium NGOs with 100–1000 offices (i.e. BURO Bangladesh, Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS), Jagaroni Chakra Foundation (JCF), Uddipon, Padakhep Manabik Unnayan Kendra, NGO Forum); (3) small NGOs with fewer than 100 offices (i.e. Rural Reconstruction Foundation (RRF), Rupantor , Gram Unnayan Karma (GUK), Voluntary Association for Rural Development (VARD), Reliant Women Development Organization (RWDO), Community Development Centre (CODEC), Mamata, Sajida Foundation , Prodipon , Proyas , Friends in Village Development Bangladesh (FIVDB), Shushilan , Ghashful ).

  3. 3.

    See Murata and Nishimura (2016) for more detailed information on the surveys.

  4. 4.

    See Murata and Nishimura (2016) for more detailed results of important attributes influencing job choices among Bangladeshi youth.

  5. 5.

    The t-statistics (t = 14.1087) is much larger than the critical value, allowing us to reject the null hypothesis of equal means.

  6. 6.

    The definition of the variables used in the analyses and the summary statistics are shown in Table 4 in Murata and Nishimura (2016).

  7. 7.

    For more details, see WHO (2012).

  8. 8.

    The definition of the attributes and their levels used in the analyses are shown in Table 7 in Murata and Nishimura (2016).

  9. 9.

    The average youth wage levels for public, private, and self-employment sectors are based on the School-to-work transition survey by the ILO (2013). Due to a lack of sample respondents for youth NGO workers in 2013 SWTS-Bangladesh, its mean wage was estimated based on the 2014 JICA Job Preference Survey in Bangladesh.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chiba Keizai University, Chiba, Japan

    Akira Murata

  2. Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Naoki Nishimura

Authors
  1. Akira Murata
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  2. Naoki Nishimura
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yasuyuki Sawada

  2. Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Minhaj Mahmud

  3. Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

    Naohiro Kitano

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Murata, A., Nishimura, N. (2018). NGO Employments and Job Preferences of Youth: Evidence from Bangladesh. In: Sawada, Y., Mahmud, M., Kitano, N. (eds) Economic and Social Development of Bangladesh. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63838-6_8

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