The impact of the Fairmined Certification on the well-being of small-scale miners: Evidence from Colombia and Peru

•Participation in the Fairmined certification scheme improves the well-being of gold miners.•The well-being improvement is driven by the impact of certification on workers.•The well-being improves according to an index of objective and subjective indicators. In this study, we estimate the impact of the Fairmined certification scheme on the well-being of participating artisanal and small-scale gold miners in Colombia and Peru. First, we collected information through phone surveys of certified and non-certified miners. Second, we constructed a well-being index that covers multiple dimensions of well-being, including material and subjective measures. Third, through linear regression techniques and propensity score matching, we compared certified miners (treatment group) to non-certified ones (control group). The results indicate that, on average, Fairmined certified miners enjoy higher well-being scores than those who do not belong to a certified mining organization.