unemployment to female labor force participation. While the literature is vast, papers, studies and reports tend to build on one or just a few country-specific datasets. Cross-country studies on employment exist, but they often rely on national estimates or ILO model-based estimates, without scrutinizing the differences between the primary data on which these estimates are based.

An exception is the continuous World Bank effort to harmonize the surveys used in its _World Development Reports_ (WDR), starting from the 1990 WDR on _Poverty_ (World Bank 1990). More recently, Montenegro and Hirn (2009) constructed a harmonized dataset of a few labor market indicators using primary data from surveys – including 19 from South Asian countries – for the 2009 WDR on _Reshaping Economic Geography_ (World Bank 2009). Similarly, a global harmonized household survey dataset called the International Income Distribution Dataset (I2D2) was developed for the 2013 WDR on _Jobs_ (World Bank 2012, Gindling and Newhouse 2012).

The dataset presented and analyzed in this paper is built in a similar spirit. It was developed for the Spring 2018 edition of _South Asia Economic Focus_ (World Bank 2018a), which explored the relationship between growth and employment in the region. To our knowledge, our dataset is the only harmonization effort for South Asia that ensures full transparency and replicability by explaining the coding based on actual questionnaires. The resulting database, identified in what follows as the South Asia Employment Dataset, is available upon request.

# **2. Sources and indicators**

# _2.1. Available primary data sources_

South Asian countries have conducted close to 100 population censuses, household surveys and labor force surveys that include questions related to employment since 2001. Pakistan and Sri Lanka have the most frequent and easily accessible surveys. Pakistan has carried out the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) survey and the Household Integrated Economic Survey every alternate year since 2004-05 and, except for a few years, the labor force survey (LFS) has been conducted on an annual basis between 2001 and 2017. Similarly, Sri Lanka has a triennial Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) and an annual Labor Force Survey (LFS) which is nationally and quarterly representative.

In India, labor market information is collected using the National Sample Survey (NSS), which every five years includes a separate employment-unemployment module (Schedule 10). In the intervening years, basic employment information is gathered together with the household consumer expenditure module. The quinquennial surveys have large samples and are referred to as the ‘thick rounds’, whereas the intervening surveys are known as the ‘thin rounds’ because of their relatively smaller sample size. An annual Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) was started in 2017 to provide more frequent and timely labor market data that is nationally and regionally representative.

Primary data from these various sources is not always publicly available. Table 1 lists all the relevant censuses and surveys conducted in South Asian countries between 2001 and 2017 and highlights in bold the 62 we got access to. Of these, 19 are from Pakistan, 17 from Sri Lanka, 9 from India, 8 from Bangladesh and 3 each from Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nepal.

3