Employment Policies and Horizontal Inequalities in Post-Conflict Situations

Abstract

Most accounts of the underlying socio-economic causes of conflict concur that a deficiency of employment opportunities, especially for young men, raises the risk of conflict (e.g. Keen 1998; Urdal 2006).¹ Consequently a deficiency in employment opportunities represents a risk factor in post-conflict situations. However, it is not just a question of the total level of employment, but also of how it is distributed across groups (or of employment horizontal inequalities) which may affect the likelihood of conflict recurrence, since employment, and in particular public sector employment, is a particularly visible indicator of HIs. This chapter, therefore, considers what sort of employment policies should be adopted in a post-conflict setting with the aim of reducing the likelihood of conflict recurrence, taking into account both total employment in relation to the size of the labour force and the way it is distributed across groups.