Dynamique des profits des micro-entreprises urbaines et genre à Madagascar. Une approche de régressions quantiles

Based on the Madagascar priority surveys of 2001 and 2005, this research examines the dynamics of profits of urban microenterprises by gender. First, the duality of own account urban labour according to gender is fairly stable over the period 2001-2005, the role of micro-enterprises headed by women being probably more residual in terms of contribution of incomes within the household. In addition, while the earnings of women's micro-enterprises rose, on average, slightly faster than those of the enterprises managed by a man during the period, the reduction of the inequality of the profits is more pronounced for the latter compared to the former. Secondly, regardless of the method of analysis, the differential of profits between micro-enterprises managed by men and those headed by a woman varies according to the distribution of the earnings of the enterprises. First, assuming that the returns of endowments of enterprises and individuals are similar between men and women, the estimation of the profit functions according to quantiles suggests, for example in 2005, that male earnings are higher 26.5 and 54.5 percent, respectively, for 50th and 95th percentiles. On the other hand, the approach of Blinder-Oaxaca - decomposition at the means of variables - and of Machado-Mata - decomposition quantile by quantile -, apprehending two sources of earnings at different points of the profit distribution - returns and endowments -, indicate that the differential of log of earnings between men and women increases with the level of percentiles. Such results support the appropriateness of the quantile regression model in the presence of a strong dispersion of the variable of interest. Thirdly, the approach of quantile regression reveals a significant variation in the contribution of endowments and returns according to percentiles. For example, for 2005, the differential of male and female earnings due to returns is 3.3 and 66.7 percent, respectively, for 10th and 95th percentiles. Conversely, one notes a sharp decline in the contribution of endowments in explaining the difference of the profits between men and women: 93.7 and 30.9 percent, respectively, for 10th and 95th percentiles. In this context, several analytical elements make it possible to apprehend the role of various parameters taken into account, both in terms of returns and endowments.