David Kippen, Ph.D.'s Blog

In both China and Viet Nam, personal transportation is typically of the two wheel variety. In both countries, the bicycle is being supplanted by the small motorcycle. On one hand, this is a reasonable outcome of the development cycle. As more people have more discretionary income, their expenditures move from basic necessities like food and housing to secondary necessities, like enhanced sources of transportation. While culture plays a part, where the marketplace goes from here is individually determined--some are more inclined to save and invest while others are more likely to spend additional income on quality of life improvements (like luxury goods).

But let me get back to the motorbike.

While it's obviously a very good thing on a personal level to replace pedal power with gas-power--not only does it increase speed and range, but it's a sign of status and success as well--the aggregation of individual choices can have stunningly negative consequences.

In Ho Chi Minh City, for example, while more motorcycles provide more job seekers more geographical range in which to seek work, the approximately two million motorcycles in operation are responsible for 80% of the air pollution and approximately 30 traffic fatalities per day.

To put that air pollution in context, unless you've been there--or somewhere similar--it's really hard to imagine how bad it can be. Dizziness, headache, nausea; burning eyes, nose, mouth; the sense that you can taste, not just smell the air...again, you really have to experience it to understand how strongly a "quality of life" index like air quality can affect you.

So, what does this have to do with employment? I suppose that depends on your perspective.

As I pointed out above, the source of the motorbike in these and other emerging markets is really a higher level of discretionary income. And wherever you sit, it's hard to argue that this is a bad thing. So one could reasonably say it's an issue for local government to sort out. But because many local governments are simply unable to afford to turn their attention to things like air quality without sacrifices in other essential areas--like education, for example--I think a more responsible position is to look at the source of that additional income and apportion responsibility accordingly.

In other words, if you're an offshore employer utilizing local talent to attain cost efficiencies, you have a moral accountability to offset the impact of the influx of your dollars on local quality of life. And that's the linkage to employment. The good news is this: it's actually good business.

In every emerging market in which I've conducted research for MNCs over the last ten years one theme has been consistent: employees want to understand how the MNC plans to improve things locally. They say "paying me is fine, but what are you doing for my country?"

Probably the best answer an MNC could give would be "we're offsetting the local impact of earned income by sponsoring quality of life initiatives in [whatever the relevant focus area happens to be]." In China and Viet Nam, a good focus area would be air quality. Employers could...
...provide company shuttles to bring employees to and from pick-up/drop-off locations
...provide electronic bikes to employees that could be recharged at company sites
...provide "upgrade allowances" that would pay the difference between buying an (incredibly polluting) two stroke motor and buying a much cleaner four-stroke motor
...provide tuning services to keep all employee motorbikes polluting as little as possible.
And if these hands-on solutions feel like too great an administrative burden there's always the option of purchasing local carbon offsets equivalent to the added environmental impact of income dollars.

Whether you come at it from a moral or business standpoint, it's the right thing to do.