IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2019-112.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Informality and Gender Gaps Going Hand in Hand

Author

Listed:
  • Vivian Malta
  • Ms. Lisa L Kolovich
  • Angelica Martinez
  • Ms. Marina Mendes Tavares

Abstract

In sub-Saharan Africa women work relatively more in the informal sector than men. Many factors could explain this difference, including women’s lower education levels, legal barriers, social norms and demographic characteristics. Cross-country comparisons indicate strong associations between gender gaps and higher female informality. This paper uses microdata from Senegal to assess the probability of a worker being informal, and our main findings are: (i) in urban areas, being a woman increases this probability by 8.5 percent; (ii) education is usually more relevant for women; (iii) having kids reduces men’s probability of being informal but increases women’s.

Suggested Citation

  • Vivian Malta & Ms. Lisa L Kolovich & Angelica Martinez & Ms. Marina Mendes Tavares, 2019. "Informality and Gender Gaps Going Hand in Hand," IMF Working Papers 2019/112, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=46888
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
    2. Günther, Isabel & Launov, Andrey, 2012. "Informal employment in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 88-98.
    3. Mr. JaeBin Ahn & Zidong An & Mr. John C Bluedorn & Gabriele Ciminelli & Zsoka Koczan & Mr. Davide Malacrino & Daniela Muhaj & Patricia Neidlinger, 2019. "Work In Progress: Improving Youth Labor Market Outcomes in Emerging Market and Developing Economies," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2019/002, International Monetary Fund.
    4. David SAHN & Catalina HERRERA, 2014. "The Impact of Early Childbearing on Schooling and Cognitive Skills among Young Women in Madagascar," Working Papers 201428, CERDI.
    5. C. Mark Blackden & Quentin Wodon, 2006. "Gender, Time Use, and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7214.
    6. Herrera, Catalina & Sahn, David & Villa, Kira, 2016. "Early Fertility and Labor Market Segmentation: Evidence from Madagascar," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235749, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2009. "Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 423-423.
    8. Brian McCaig & Nina Pavcnik, 2015. "Informal Employment in a Growing and Globalizing Low-Income Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 545-550, May.
    9. Herrendorf, Berthold & Rogerson, Richard & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2014. "Growth and Structural Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 855-941, Elsevier.
    10. Blackden, Mark & Wodon, Quentin, 2006. "Gender, Time Use, and Poverty: Introduction," MPRA Paper 11080, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Rauch, James E., 1991. "Modelling the informal sector formally," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 33-47, January.
    12. Magnac, Th, 1991. "Segmented or Competitive Labor Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 165-187, January.
    13. Guillermo E. Perry & William F. Maloney & Omar S. Arias & Pablo Fajnzylber & Andrew D. Mason & Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi, 2007. "Informality : Exit and Exclusion," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6730.
    14. Maloney, William F, 1999. "Does Informality Imply Segmentation in Urban Labor Markets? Evidence from Sectoral Transitions in Mexico," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 275-302, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Youghourta Bellache, Omar Babou, Oksana Nezhyvenko, Philippe Adair, 2021. "Informal employment in the Kabylia region (Algeria): labour force segmentation, mobility and earnings," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 18(2), pages 139-172, December.
    2. Davis, Lewis S. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2022. "Individualism and women's economic rights," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 579-597.
    3. Ebenezer Lemven Wirba & Fiennasah Annif’ Akem & Francis Menjo Baye, 2021. "Earnings gap between men and women in the informal labor market in Cameroon," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1466-1491, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alcaraz Carlo & Chiquiar Daniel & Salcedo Alejandrina, 2015. "Informality and Segmentation in the Mexican Labor Market," Working Papers 2015-25, Banco de México.
    2. Aysit Tansel & Elif Oznur Acar, 2016. "The Formal/Informal Employment Earnings Gap: Evidence from Turkey," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality after the 20th Century: Papers from the Sixth ECINEQ Meeting, volume 24, pages 121-154, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Bosch, Mariano & Maloney, William F., 2010. "Comparative analysis of labor market dynamics using Markov processes: An application to informality," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 621-631, August.
    4. Dang, Thang, 2017. "Education as Protection? The Effect of Schooling on Non-Wage Compensation in a Developing Country," MPRA Paper 79223, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Paula Herrera-Id�rraga & Enrique L�pez-Bazo & Elisabet Motell�n, 2015. "Double Penalty in Returns to Education: Informality and Educational Mismatch in the Colombian Labour Market," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(12), pages 1683-1701, December.
    6. Rayees Ahmad Sheikh & Sarthak Gaurav, 2020. "Informal Work in India: A Tale of Two Definitions," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 1105-1127, September.
    7. Aysit Tansel & Elif Oznur Acar, 2016. "The Formal/Informal Employment Earnings Gap: Evidence from Turkey," Research on Economic Inequality,in: Inequality after the 20th Century: Papers from the Sixth ECINEQ Meeting, volume 24, pages 121-154 Emerald Publishing Ltd.
    8. Ben Yahmed, Sarra, 2016. "Formal but less equal: Gender wage gaps in formal and informal jobs in Brazil," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-085, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Arbex, Marcelo & Galvao, Antonio F. & Gomes, Fábio Augusto Reis, 2010. "Heterogeneity in the Returns to Education and Informal Activities," Insper Working Papers wpe_216, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    10. Mónica Jiménez, 2017. "La calidad del empleo y sus consecuencias para el mercado de trabajo de las medianas y grandes empresas y del sector público de argentina," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 40(79), pages 133-180.
    11. Fernando Botelho & Vladimir Ponczek, 2011. "Segmentation in the Brazilian Labor Market," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 437-463.
    12. Dossè Mawussi DJAHINI-AFAWOUBO, 2023. "Niveau d’éducation et probabilité d’être employé dans le secteur informel au Togo," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 57, pages 29-48.
    13. Shahen, Mostafa E. & Kotani, Koji & Kakinaka, Makoto & Managi, Shunsuke, 2020. "Wage and labor mobility between public, formal private and informal private sectors in a developing country," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 101-113.
    14. Arturo Antón & Alejandro Rasteletti, 2022. "Taxing Labor Income in an Economy with High Employment Informality," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 33-68, June.
    15. Peter Huber & Ulugbek Rahimov, 2017. "The Self-Selection of Workers to the Formal and Informal in Transition Economies: Evidence from Tajikistan," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 67(2), pages 140-164, April.
    16. Kose, M. Ayhan & Elgin, Ceyhun & Ohnsorge, Franziska & Yu, Shu, 2021. "Understanding Informality," CEPR Discussion Papers 16497, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Henley, Andrew & Arabsheibani, G. Reza & Carneiro, Francisco G., 2009. "On Defining and Measuring the Informal Sector: Evidence from Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 992-1003, May.
    18. Giorgio Brosio & Juan Pablo Jiménez & Roberto Zanola, 2014. "Alternative views on the origins and impact of the informal economy," Chapters, in: Francesco Forte & Ram Mudambi & Pietro Maria Navarra (ed.), A Handbook of Alternative Theories of Public Economics, chapter 21, pages 485-502, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Gindling,T. H. & Mossaad,Nadwa & Newhouse,David Locke, 2016. "Earnings premiums and penalties for self-employment and informal employees around the world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7530, The World Bank.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2019/112. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.