IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/eurjdr/v27y2015i5p868-886.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Workers and Labour Market Outcomes of Informal Jobs in Formal Establishments. A Job-based Informality Index for Nine Sub-Saharan African Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Kea Tijdens

    (Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; E-mails: J.Besamusca@uva.nl; M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl)

  • Janna Besamusca

    (Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; E-mails: J.Besamusca@uva.nl; M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl)

  • Maarten van Klaveren

    (Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; E-mails: J.Besamusca@uva.nl; M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl)

Abstract

How can an informal job in formal establishments be defined? Who has an informal job? What are the labour market outcomes? This article uses data of comparable face-to-face surveys in nine countries: Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo. An index for job-based informality is developed, based on employment status and contribution and entitlement to social security. Young and low-educated workers are more likely to hold informal jobs; even more so are workers in small enterprises, in trade, transport and hospitality, and in unskilled occupations, while workers in skilled occupations and with high education are less likely to hold informal jobs. No evidence is found regarding gendered effects. The more informal, the poorer the labour market outcomes: wages are lower, while the chances are higher of being paid below the minimum wage, working more than 48 hours and not being covered by a collective agreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Kea Tijdens & Janna Besamusca & Maarten van Klaveren, 2015. "Workers and Labour Market Outcomes of Informal Jobs in Formal Establishments. A Job-based Informality Index for Nine Sub-Saharan African Countries," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 27(5), pages 868-886, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:27:y:2015:i:5:p:868-886
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v27/n5/pdf/ejdr201473a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v27/n5/full/ejdr201473a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andes Chivangue & Carlos Barros, 2017. "Poverty and Informal Trade," CEsA Working Papers 151, CEsA - Centre for African and Development Studies.
    2. Floridi, A. & Wagner, N. & Cameron, J., 2016. "A study of Egyptian and Palestine trans-formal firms – A neglected category operating in the borderland between formality and informality," ISS Working Papers - General Series 619, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    3. James Sumberg & Justin Flynn & Philip Mader & Grace Mwaura & Marjoke Oosterom & Robert Sam‐Kpakra & Ayodele Ibrahim Shittu, 2020. "Formal‐sector employment and Africa's youth employment crisis: Irrelevance or policy priority?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(4), pages 428-440, July.
    4. Floridi, Andrea & Demena, Binyam Afewerk & Wagner, Natascha, 2020. "Shedding light on the shadows of informality: A meta-analysis of formalization interventions targeted at informal firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Floridi, A. & Demena, B.A. & Wagner, N., 2019. "Shedding light on the shadows of informality," ISS Working Papers - General Series 642, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:27:y:2015:i:5:p:868-886. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.