This document analyzes employment trends in Nairobi, Kenya from the 1990s using multiple data sources. It finds that while official records show a shift from formal to informal employment, a careful examination shows no direct transfer from the formal sector to the informal sector. Rather, there was an increasing number of informal contracts between formal enterprises and employees, reducing protections. Seven out of eight jobs still depended on the formal sector. Although migrants made up most of the active population, migration did not significantly impact the labor market structure. However, Nairobi became less attractive to male migrants in the 1990s due to unemployment and lack of opportunity in the formal sector. The market also discriminated more against women over this period. As a result of
This document analyzes demand-side linkages between the formal and informal sectors in six West African capitals using household expenditure data. It finds:
1) Households purchase both formal and informal goods and use both formal and informal distribution channels, indicating overlapping customer bases between the sectors.
2) Demand for informal goods and distribution channels tends to decrease with rising income, while demand for formal goods and channels increases, suggesting the informal sector faces constraints from the demand side.
3) Estimated demand elasticities further show rising incomes are associated with lower consumption of informal goods and use of informal distribution channels.
This document summarizes a case study examining the challenges faced by local governments in South Africa in delivering energy services to residents of informal settlements. Interviews with residents of an informal settlement in Grassy Park revealed that they spend a large portion of their income on expensive and unsafe fuels like paraffin and candles for lighting, cooking and heating. While national policy aims to address energy poverty through initiatives like Free Basic Alternative Energy, local governments have struggled with implementation. Meetings with officials revealed tensions between national and local roles, and that the funding allocation of R55 per household per month was insufficient for meaningful implementation of energy access programs for residents of informal settlements.
The political dynamics of the informal sector in tanzaniaDr Lendy Spires
The document discusses theories and definitions of the informal economy in Tanzania. It summarizes four common assumptions about the informal sector: 1) it is stagnant and unproductive, 2) actors are uneducated, 3) it is separate from the formal sector, and 4) it is politically stagnant. The document argues these assumptions overlook the sector's dynamism, connections to the formal economy, and political activities. It examines how the informal sector challenges definitions and theories that assume it is homogeneous or incapable of growth and development. The informal sector is an important part of the Tanzanian economy and contains a diversity of actors engaged in complex political and economic dynamics.
This document outlines Durban's policy for managing its informal economy. It recognizes the important economic role of the informal sector and aims to promote diverse economic opportunities through area-based management, sector support for small businesses, and integrated functions of management, regulation and enterprise support. The policy proposes pilot programs in specific areas to test its approach and transitional arrangements to prioritize implementation. It takes an inclusive approach to institutional structures and monitoring/evaluation.
This document summarizes a report on taxing the informal sector in developing countries. It begins by defining the informal sector and discussing its size in African economies. There are benefits to taxing the informal sector such as increasing government revenue, encouraging economic growth, and strengthening accountability. However, efforts to tax the informal sector face challenges related to compliance. The report discusses common strategies used like indirect taxes, withholding taxes, and presumptive tax regimes. It argues more research is needed on incentives for compliance and how to shift incentives for taxpayers, politicians, and administrators. Some countries are experimenting with new approaches but more evidence is still needed on their outcomes and impacts on development.
1. The document examines the informal sector in Alice, South Africa as a source of household income for poor urban residents. It explores the impact of the informal sector on livelihoods and suggests ways to improve its income-generating ability.
2. The informal sector faces many challenges, including lack of capital, complex regulations, and high transportation costs. The study investigates these challenges and proposes policy solutions to assist the sector and reduce poverty.
3. The research objectives are to determine if the informal sector provides income, assess the average income it provides, and examine problems facing informal businesses in Alice.
This document summarizes a paper that analyzes the relationship between the formal and informal sectors in India. It begins by reviewing literature on the linkages between agriculture and the formal sector, including demand-side linkages through income redistribution and mutual exchange, and supply-side linkages as agriculture provides wage goods, raw materials, and prevents a "profit squeeze" in the formal sector. The paper then proposes departing from models where prices determine resource allocation and output, and instead assumes rigid wages and terms of trade between agriculture and the formal sector due to powerful lobbying groups. It plans to build a macroeconomic framework to analyze whether the formal and informal sectors have a complementary or conflicting relationship.
This document discusses integrating the informal waste sector into solid waste management systems. It notes that the informal sector currently recovers more resources from waste than the formal sector in many low and middle-income countries. Integrating the informal sector can help improve recycling rates, reduce environmental harm, boost resource recovery, and create employment opportunities. The document outlines approaches some organizations have taken to facilitate integration, including involving the informal sector in policymaking and planning, strengthening their organizational capacities, and fostering partnerships between informal and formal private sectors.
This document analyzes demand-side linkages between the formal and informal sectors in six West African capitals using household expenditure data. It finds:
1) Households purchase both formal and informal goods and use both formal and informal distribution channels, indicating overlapping customer bases between the sectors.
2) Demand for informal goods and distribution channels tends to decrease with rising income, while demand for formal goods and channels increases, suggesting the informal sector faces constraints from the demand side.
3) Estimated demand elasticities further show rising incomes are associated with lower consumption of informal goods and use of informal distribution channels.
This document summarizes a case study examining the challenges faced by local governments in South Africa in delivering energy services to residents of informal settlements. Interviews with residents of an informal settlement in Grassy Park revealed that they spend a large portion of their income on expensive and unsafe fuels like paraffin and candles for lighting, cooking and heating. While national policy aims to address energy poverty through initiatives like Free Basic Alternative Energy, local governments have struggled with implementation. Meetings with officials revealed tensions between national and local roles, and that the funding allocation of R55 per household per month was insufficient for meaningful implementation of energy access programs for residents of informal settlements.
The political dynamics of the informal sector in tanzaniaDr Lendy Spires
The document discusses theories and definitions of the informal economy in Tanzania. It summarizes four common assumptions about the informal sector: 1) it is stagnant and unproductive, 2) actors are uneducated, 3) it is separate from the formal sector, and 4) it is politically stagnant. The document argues these assumptions overlook the sector's dynamism, connections to the formal economy, and political activities. It examines how the informal sector challenges definitions and theories that assume it is homogeneous or incapable of growth and development. The informal sector is an important part of the Tanzanian economy and contains a diversity of actors engaged in complex political and economic dynamics.
This document outlines Durban's policy for managing its informal economy. It recognizes the important economic role of the informal sector and aims to promote diverse economic opportunities through area-based management, sector support for small businesses, and integrated functions of management, regulation and enterprise support. The policy proposes pilot programs in specific areas to test its approach and transitional arrangements to prioritize implementation. It takes an inclusive approach to institutional structures and monitoring/evaluation.
This document summarizes a report on taxing the informal sector in developing countries. It begins by defining the informal sector and discussing its size in African economies. There are benefits to taxing the informal sector such as increasing government revenue, encouraging economic growth, and strengthening accountability. However, efforts to tax the informal sector face challenges related to compliance. The report discusses common strategies used like indirect taxes, withholding taxes, and presumptive tax regimes. It argues more research is needed on incentives for compliance and how to shift incentives for taxpayers, politicians, and administrators. Some countries are experimenting with new approaches but more evidence is still needed on their outcomes and impacts on development.
1. The document examines the informal sector in Alice, South Africa as a source of household income for poor urban residents. It explores the impact of the informal sector on livelihoods and suggests ways to improve its income-generating ability.
2. The informal sector faces many challenges, including lack of capital, complex regulations, and high transportation costs. The study investigates these challenges and proposes policy solutions to assist the sector and reduce poverty.
3. The research objectives are to determine if the informal sector provides income, assess the average income it provides, and examine problems facing informal businesses in Alice.
This document summarizes a paper that analyzes the relationship between the formal and informal sectors in India. It begins by reviewing literature on the linkages between agriculture and the formal sector, including demand-side linkages through income redistribution and mutual exchange, and supply-side linkages as agriculture provides wage goods, raw materials, and prevents a "profit squeeze" in the formal sector. The paper then proposes departing from models where prices determine resource allocation and output, and instead assumes rigid wages and terms of trade between agriculture and the formal sector due to powerful lobbying groups. It plans to build a macroeconomic framework to analyze whether the formal and informal sectors have a complementary or conflicting relationship.
This document discusses integrating the informal waste sector into solid waste management systems. It notes that the informal sector currently recovers more resources from waste than the formal sector in many low and middle-income countries. Integrating the informal sector can help improve recycling rates, reduce environmental harm, boost resource recovery, and create employment opportunities. The document outlines approaches some organizations have taken to facilitate integration, including involving the informal sector in policymaking and planning, strengthening their organizational capacities, and fostering partnerships between informal and formal private sectors.
This document summarizes a project in The Gambia that aimed to improve access for the informal tourism sector to economic opportunities. It describes how the project engaged stakeholders from the informal and formal sectors, as well as the Gambian government, to address barriers faced by informal workers. Through consensus-building activities and pilot initiatives in areas like craft markets and juice selling, the project helped increase sales and earnings for informal businesses. It provides lessons on developing partnerships between sectors and empowering local organizations to promote inclusive and sustainable tourism development.
This document summarizes a paper that examines the informal economy from the perspective of informal businesses. It defines the informal economy as economic activity that occurs outside the legal framework, though the activities may be legal in nature. The paper explores different views on whether the informal economy is problematic or a solution. It also discusses the size and causes of the informal economy, including how high costs of formalization can drive businesses underground. A case study on Haiti finds that most businesses operate informally there due to legislative and institutional barriers that make formalization excessively costly and complex.
This dissertation examines the relationship between Botswana's developmental state and the country's informal sector. It finds that while Botswana has pursued industrial policies to support small businesses and economic empowerment, the legal and regulatory framework has negatively impacted informal sector enterprises. The dissertation also analyzes the national and local institutional frameworks for micro-enterprise development in Botswana, finding gaps in capacity at both levels. Overall, while Botswana's developmental state has achieved economic success, its policies and institutions have yet to fully capitalize on the potential of the informal sector to further development goals.
Measuring informality: A statistical manual on the informal sector and infor...Dr Lendy Spires
This document provides an overview and guidelines for measuring informality through statistical standards and data collection methods. It discusses the definitions and concepts of the informal sector and informal employment as established by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS). The informal sector is defined as unregistered or small businesses that lack formal structures, while informal employment includes jobs without social protections. The document recommends household surveys, establishment surveys, and mixed modular/independent surveys to collect data on employment in these areas. It also provides options for indirect estimation techniques if direct data is unavailable. The goal is to help national statistical offices improve measurement and comparability of statistics on the informal sector and informal employment.
This document discusses the informal waste recycling sector in developing countries and models for organizing waste pickers. It finds that informal waste recycling has significant economic and environmental benefits. When organized through microenterprises, cooperatives, or public-private partnerships, waste pickers can improve their livelihoods and bargaining power. The document estimates that informal recycling impacts hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity annually in some cities. Organizing waste pickers formalizes their work, increases incomes and social inclusion, and leads to more efficient recycling.
This document examines policy recommendations for addressing the challenges posed by the large informal sector in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses five main areas for policy interventions based on recent research: 1) improving productivity across the informal sector continuum, 2) developing public-private partnerships to implement mutually beneficial reforms, 3) increasing skills development and access to business services, 4) reducing incentives for smuggling and promoting regional trade, 5) targeting labor-intensive sectors to capitalize on demographic shifts. The informal sector plays a major role in many African economies but also undermines growth, fiscal revenues and competitiveness. Coordinated reforms are needed at national, regional and international levels.
This document discusses the challenges that trade unions face in organizing informal workers. It notes that informal employment makes up a large portion of the global workforce but that informal workers are often excluded from traditional trade union structures and protections. The main challenges identified include political and conceptual barriers regarding how to define informal workers, practical difficulties organizing workers in scattered and individual workplaces, resource constraints for workers with precarious livelihoods, and issues with existing leadership structures. However, the document also discusses that informal workers are being organized through diverse models including trade unions, workers' associations, cooperatives, and other membership-based organizations.
This document discusses measuring the informal economy in urban areas. It notes that while much research has focused on developing countries, the informal economy is also present in American cities through street vendors, day laborers, and other activities. Local governments need accurate data on the informal economy to better support economic development and understand urban economic trends, but often view informal workers as problems rather than important economic contributors. The paper argues for new research methods to better quantify the informal economy at the neighborhood level in order to inform public policy decisions.
This document provides background information and objectives of a project measuring the informal sector and informal employment in St. Lucia. It discusses three key points:
1. The project will enhance statistical capacity through collecting informal employment and enterprise survey data, and training staff on international methodologies. This will improve labor and national accounts statistics.
2. Better informal sector data can help monitor progress on MDGs by providing insights into poverty and gender dimensions of employment.
3. The data can support evidence-based policymaking by informing social and economic policies related to issues like SMEs, poverty reduction, and gender equality. The overall goal is to improve availability and use of informal sector statistics.
This document discusses research on Nigeria's informal sector over nearly four decades. It begins by noting the rapid growth of informal economies globally and the large body of literature on the topic. Some scholars advocate analyzing informality at the national level given variability across countries. The Nigerian informal sector predates the concept's introduction, with early research in 1975. Since structural adjustment in 1986, the informal workforce has greatly expanded. The document aims to systematically review informal sector literature in Nigeria for the first time. It analyzes the trajectory of research and aims to identify gaps to inform future studies.
The document discusses the role of the informal sector in solid waste management and conditions for its successful integration. It finds that informal waste pickers currently contribute significantly to waste collection, sorting, and recycling in many developing countries. However, waste pickers often face hazardous working conditions with lack of benefits. The document examines experiences from GTZ projects and identifies key factors for the informal sector's successful integration, including: the organization of waste pickers, developing social acceptance of their work, establishing legal protections and partnerships with the public and private sectors, and ensuring their access to waste materials. Overall, the experiences discussed found that partnerships with the informal sector can improve waste management while also contributing to poverty reduction.
The document summarizes a study on the role of the informal sector in poverty reduction and food security in Malawi. Key findings from the study include:
- Agriculture is the main livelihood for most respondents, with over 86.7% depending on own production for food.
- Income generating activities (IGAs) play an important role in supporting agricultural production by providing income to purchase household needs and farm inputs.
- The study recommends encouraging IGAs to sustain household food security and reduce poverty levels by supporting agricultural productivity.
This document summarizes a paper on organizing workers in the informal sector through trade union-cooperative action. Some key points:
1. Trade unions and cooperatives have historically collaborated, though they employ different strategies - unions focus on mutual struggle, cooperatives on mutual help. Both share core values like democracy and mutual support.
2. The informal sector refers to unprotected, unorganized workers. Views range from optimistic to pessimistic on its value. The concept applies less in developed countries due to less widespread informalization.
3. Informal sector workers lack protections, income, social services and face many constraints. Their vulnerability is a common theme. Trade unions and cooperatives have a duty to help given
This case study examines social entrepreneurship among women making paper beads in the informal sector of Kireka and Banda, Kampala, Uganda. Most of the women are widows, refugees, or living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to self-employment, their businesses provide a survival strategy. Though operating small nonprofit businesses, they demonstrate innovative behaviors and increase mission value, qualifying as social entrepreneurs. The study analyzes psychological, sociological, and economic theories to explain the emergence of social entrepreneurship in this context, noting the importance of social networks and life circumstances. It concludes by questioning how these social entrepreneurs can gain market access and whether a sustainable model can be adapted for this community.
This document summarizes findings from interviews with 55 African Americans engaged in informal economic activities in Chicago and Baltimore. It explores the nature of informal work, reasons for participating, and advantages and disadvantages. Most interviewees operate unregistered, cash-based businesses like home repair, childcare, or hair styling. While some supplement formal jobs, others work informally due to inability to find formal employment or dissatisfaction with formal jobs. Reasons for participating include the need for supplemental income, a desire for independence, or to strengthen social support networks. The document discusses implications for microenterprise programs seeking to engage these potential clients.
This document provides an overview of the informal economy in developing countries. It discusses the development and definitions of the informal economy, how it is measured, and its composition across different world regions. It finds that the informal economy has significantly grown in most developing nations and now constitutes a large share of employment. Common obstacles faced by informal enterprises include access to finance, regulatory burdens, and lack of property rights. The document reviews policies by governments and international organizations to support the informal economy. It examines Sida's approach and finds room to increase knowledge of the informal economy and target interventions more clearly. Overall, the document argues for the need to develop innovative policies that recognize the contributions of informal actors and help facilitate their graduation to the formal economy.
INFORMAL SECTOR IN THE TURKISH LABOUR MARKET Dr Lendy Spires
A comparison between Turkey on the one side and developed countries on the other shows clearly that the share of agricultural employment in total employment in Turkey was much higher at the beginning of the 20th century. In the same vein, the rate of decline in agricultural employment was much slower in Turkey during the century. The result is that agriculture’s share in total employment is substantially higher in Turkey as compared with developed countries during and at the end of the 20th century
Uneducated people from rural areas have been capable to find satisfactory jobs in manufacturing factories in the cities. But manufacturing has not been so successful after the 1980s. Export-promotion policies have replaced the import-substitution policies. New technology and employment trends in the world and Turkey have not been so friendly towards the uneducated masses in rural areas. Consequently, the pull of the cities has not been as powerful after 1980 as it was in the 1960s and the 1970s. (1)
The general trend has always been a great surplus labour in rural areas, ready and wishful to move to cities, mainly because of low productivity and standard of living. The pull of the cities has been generally inadequate to absorb and employ these large volumes of people in satisfactory jobs. These have ushered in the informal sector into the cities, especially into the mega city of Istanbul. These have led to the need of a new classification that includes the informal sector. We think that the informal sector should be put into a new classification, which is composed of agricultural, informal-sector, formal-sector and public-sector employment.
The last component covers the employment in government and public enterprises. This classification can serve an important function alongside with the traditional classification of agriculture, industry and services. (See, Tables 6, 7.)The importance of this new classification or the inclusion of the informal sector in the new classification arises from the low productivity of the informal sector. It is not higher than agricultural productivity in general, but larger than that of backward regions. It is, on the other hand, considerably lower than formal-sector productivity (Table 13).
The low productivity in these two sectors (agriculture and informal sectors) is a fundamental characteristic of the Turkish labour market. In fact, this low productivity is a better measure of the weakness of the labour market in Turkey than the standard unemployment rate, like in other similar countries, for the following reasons: i) The standard unemployment rate is not highly relevant in a labour market where agriculture dominates. ii) An unemployment insurance system did not exist in Turkey until very recently. In fact, this very new insurance is still not in operation at present.
The unformal sector in sub saharan africa - out of the shadows to forster sus...Dr Lendy Spires
This document discusses the growth of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa and its implications. It argues that the informal sector should be seen as a vibrant part of the economy rather than just a marginalized sector. The informal sector now provides the majority of employment across sub-Saharan Africa and makes up a large portion of GDP. The growth of the informal sector is due to factors like urban bias in development policies, restrictive labor laws, rural-urban migration, and structural adjustment policies. The document recommends establishing policies and regulations that support the growth of the informal sector in order to foster employment, economic growth, and equity.
The document summarizes trends in teen employment in Chicago, Illinois, and the U.S. since 2000. It finds that teen employment rates have plunged, declining most sharply in Chicago. In Chicago, the teen employment rate fell from 32% in 1998-2000 to only 13% in 2011-2013. The economic recession further reduced employment opportunities for teens, especially male and black teens in Chicago. Teen employment is also strongly linked to household income levels, with far fewer teens employed from lower-income households in Chicago. The declines in teen employment could negatively impact teens' long-term economic and educational outcomes.
Migration Pattern and Urban Informal Sector of Bangladesh The Applicability o...ijtsrd
Urbanization in Bangladesh is an emergent phenomenon of recent times. Widespread urbanization facilitates the economy through offering urban centric better employment opportunities to generate greater pull factor which attracts more rural to urban migration. The growing population creates more pressure in urban economy which might led the urban formal sector to perform less effectively. Income differentials between rural and urban area form a greater expected urban income which motivate migrants to change their workplace and move to urban areas. Urban formal sectors have been mislaying its ability to generate diversified income source for those excessive urban job seekers. As a result, higher unemployment rate in urban sector creates more pressure on the economy. People migrating from rural to urban may wish to stay for a considerable period of time with a hope of finding a new settlement and prefer to survive with lack of both social and financial insecurities leading to the establishment of urban slums. Informal sector has led the way to feed those who are unable to get a desired job through offering short time self employment opportunity. Rural to urban migration sometimes act in opposite direction owing to economic downturns when urban sector fails to absorb the jobless labors often encourage reverse migration. Current ongoing COVID 19 pandemic in Bangladesh has led informal sector in a fickle due to continuous lock down situation which compels urban to rural migration for most of the population engaged in informal economic activities in many urban areas of Bangladesh. Naimur Rahman | Faryana Rafiq "Migration Pattern and Urban Informal Sector of Bangladesh: The Applicability of the Harris-Todaro Migration Model in the Presence of COVID-19 Outbreak" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-6 , October 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33690.pdf Paper Url: https://www.ijtsrd.com/economics/other/33690/migration-pattern-and-urban-informal-sector-of-bangladesh-the-applicability-of-the-harristodaro-migration-model-in-the-presence-of-covid19-outbreak/naimur-rahman
This document provides an overview of a literature review on the informal economy conducted jointly by the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED) and The Aspen Institute. It was funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The literature review examines definitions of the informal economy, theories to explain its existence, characteristics of informal workers, industries with high rates of informal work, and estimates of the size of the informal economy. The review aims to understand the intersection between the informal economy and microenterprise programs in the United States.
Rising rate of unemployment in the face of various policies and programmes by the successive Nigeria government prompted the researcher to evaluate the contributions of the once neglected informal sector of the economy
This document summarizes a project in The Gambia that aimed to improve access for the informal tourism sector to economic opportunities. It describes how the project engaged stakeholders from the informal and formal sectors, as well as the Gambian government, to address barriers faced by informal workers. Through consensus-building activities and pilot initiatives in areas like craft markets and juice selling, the project helped increase sales and earnings for informal businesses. It provides lessons on developing partnerships between sectors and empowering local organizations to promote inclusive and sustainable tourism development.
This document summarizes a paper that examines the informal economy from the perspective of informal businesses. It defines the informal economy as economic activity that occurs outside the legal framework, though the activities may be legal in nature. The paper explores different views on whether the informal economy is problematic or a solution. It also discusses the size and causes of the informal economy, including how high costs of formalization can drive businesses underground. A case study on Haiti finds that most businesses operate informally there due to legislative and institutional barriers that make formalization excessively costly and complex.
This dissertation examines the relationship between Botswana's developmental state and the country's informal sector. It finds that while Botswana has pursued industrial policies to support small businesses and economic empowerment, the legal and regulatory framework has negatively impacted informal sector enterprises. The dissertation also analyzes the national and local institutional frameworks for micro-enterprise development in Botswana, finding gaps in capacity at both levels. Overall, while Botswana's developmental state has achieved economic success, its policies and institutions have yet to fully capitalize on the potential of the informal sector to further development goals.
Measuring informality: A statistical manual on the informal sector and infor...Dr Lendy Spires
This document provides an overview and guidelines for measuring informality through statistical standards and data collection methods. It discusses the definitions and concepts of the informal sector and informal employment as established by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS). The informal sector is defined as unregistered or small businesses that lack formal structures, while informal employment includes jobs without social protections. The document recommends household surveys, establishment surveys, and mixed modular/independent surveys to collect data on employment in these areas. It also provides options for indirect estimation techniques if direct data is unavailable. The goal is to help national statistical offices improve measurement and comparability of statistics on the informal sector and informal employment.
This document discusses the informal waste recycling sector in developing countries and models for organizing waste pickers. It finds that informal waste recycling has significant economic and environmental benefits. When organized through microenterprises, cooperatives, or public-private partnerships, waste pickers can improve their livelihoods and bargaining power. The document estimates that informal recycling impacts hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity annually in some cities. Organizing waste pickers formalizes their work, increases incomes and social inclusion, and leads to more efficient recycling.
This document examines policy recommendations for addressing the challenges posed by the large informal sector in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses five main areas for policy interventions based on recent research: 1) improving productivity across the informal sector continuum, 2) developing public-private partnerships to implement mutually beneficial reforms, 3) increasing skills development and access to business services, 4) reducing incentives for smuggling and promoting regional trade, 5) targeting labor-intensive sectors to capitalize on demographic shifts. The informal sector plays a major role in many African economies but also undermines growth, fiscal revenues and competitiveness. Coordinated reforms are needed at national, regional and international levels.
This document discusses the challenges that trade unions face in organizing informal workers. It notes that informal employment makes up a large portion of the global workforce but that informal workers are often excluded from traditional trade union structures and protections. The main challenges identified include political and conceptual barriers regarding how to define informal workers, practical difficulties organizing workers in scattered and individual workplaces, resource constraints for workers with precarious livelihoods, and issues with existing leadership structures. However, the document also discusses that informal workers are being organized through diverse models including trade unions, workers' associations, cooperatives, and other membership-based organizations.
This document discusses measuring the informal economy in urban areas. It notes that while much research has focused on developing countries, the informal economy is also present in American cities through street vendors, day laborers, and other activities. Local governments need accurate data on the informal economy to better support economic development and understand urban economic trends, but often view informal workers as problems rather than important economic contributors. The paper argues for new research methods to better quantify the informal economy at the neighborhood level in order to inform public policy decisions.
This document provides background information and objectives of a project measuring the informal sector and informal employment in St. Lucia. It discusses three key points:
1. The project will enhance statistical capacity through collecting informal employment and enterprise survey data, and training staff on international methodologies. This will improve labor and national accounts statistics.
2. Better informal sector data can help monitor progress on MDGs by providing insights into poverty and gender dimensions of employment.
3. The data can support evidence-based policymaking by informing social and economic policies related to issues like SMEs, poverty reduction, and gender equality. The overall goal is to improve availability and use of informal sector statistics.
This document discusses research on Nigeria's informal sector over nearly four decades. It begins by noting the rapid growth of informal economies globally and the large body of literature on the topic. Some scholars advocate analyzing informality at the national level given variability across countries. The Nigerian informal sector predates the concept's introduction, with early research in 1975. Since structural adjustment in 1986, the informal workforce has greatly expanded. The document aims to systematically review informal sector literature in Nigeria for the first time. It analyzes the trajectory of research and aims to identify gaps to inform future studies.
The document discusses the role of the informal sector in solid waste management and conditions for its successful integration. It finds that informal waste pickers currently contribute significantly to waste collection, sorting, and recycling in many developing countries. However, waste pickers often face hazardous working conditions with lack of benefits. The document examines experiences from GTZ projects and identifies key factors for the informal sector's successful integration, including: the organization of waste pickers, developing social acceptance of their work, establishing legal protections and partnerships with the public and private sectors, and ensuring their access to waste materials. Overall, the experiences discussed found that partnerships with the informal sector can improve waste management while also contributing to poverty reduction.
The document summarizes a study on the role of the informal sector in poverty reduction and food security in Malawi. Key findings from the study include:
- Agriculture is the main livelihood for most respondents, with over 86.7% depending on own production for food.
- Income generating activities (IGAs) play an important role in supporting agricultural production by providing income to purchase household needs and farm inputs.
- The study recommends encouraging IGAs to sustain household food security and reduce poverty levels by supporting agricultural productivity.
This document summarizes a paper on organizing workers in the informal sector through trade union-cooperative action. Some key points:
1. Trade unions and cooperatives have historically collaborated, though they employ different strategies - unions focus on mutual struggle, cooperatives on mutual help. Both share core values like democracy and mutual support.
2. The informal sector refers to unprotected, unorganized workers. Views range from optimistic to pessimistic on its value. The concept applies less in developed countries due to less widespread informalization.
3. Informal sector workers lack protections, income, social services and face many constraints. Their vulnerability is a common theme. Trade unions and cooperatives have a duty to help given
This case study examines social entrepreneurship among women making paper beads in the informal sector of Kireka and Banda, Kampala, Uganda. Most of the women are widows, refugees, or living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to self-employment, their businesses provide a survival strategy. Though operating small nonprofit businesses, they demonstrate innovative behaviors and increase mission value, qualifying as social entrepreneurs. The study analyzes psychological, sociological, and economic theories to explain the emergence of social entrepreneurship in this context, noting the importance of social networks and life circumstances. It concludes by questioning how these social entrepreneurs can gain market access and whether a sustainable model can be adapted for this community.
This document summarizes findings from interviews with 55 African Americans engaged in informal economic activities in Chicago and Baltimore. It explores the nature of informal work, reasons for participating, and advantages and disadvantages. Most interviewees operate unregistered, cash-based businesses like home repair, childcare, or hair styling. While some supplement formal jobs, others work informally due to inability to find formal employment or dissatisfaction with formal jobs. Reasons for participating include the need for supplemental income, a desire for independence, or to strengthen social support networks. The document discusses implications for microenterprise programs seeking to engage these potential clients.
This document provides an overview of the informal economy in developing countries. It discusses the development and definitions of the informal economy, how it is measured, and its composition across different world regions. It finds that the informal economy has significantly grown in most developing nations and now constitutes a large share of employment. Common obstacles faced by informal enterprises include access to finance, regulatory burdens, and lack of property rights. The document reviews policies by governments and international organizations to support the informal economy. It examines Sida's approach and finds room to increase knowledge of the informal economy and target interventions more clearly. Overall, the document argues for the need to develop innovative policies that recognize the contributions of informal actors and help facilitate their graduation to the formal economy.
INFORMAL SECTOR IN THE TURKISH LABOUR MARKET Dr Lendy Spires
A comparison between Turkey on the one side and developed countries on the other shows clearly that the share of agricultural employment in total employment in Turkey was much higher at the beginning of the 20th century. In the same vein, the rate of decline in agricultural employment was much slower in Turkey during the century. The result is that agriculture’s share in total employment is substantially higher in Turkey as compared with developed countries during and at the end of the 20th century
Uneducated people from rural areas have been capable to find satisfactory jobs in manufacturing factories in the cities. But manufacturing has not been so successful after the 1980s. Export-promotion policies have replaced the import-substitution policies. New technology and employment trends in the world and Turkey have not been so friendly towards the uneducated masses in rural areas. Consequently, the pull of the cities has not been as powerful after 1980 as it was in the 1960s and the 1970s. (1)
The general trend has always been a great surplus labour in rural areas, ready and wishful to move to cities, mainly because of low productivity and standard of living. The pull of the cities has been generally inadequate to absorb and employ these large volumes of people in satisfactory jobs. These have ushered in the informal sector into the cities, especially into the mega city of Istanbul. These have led to the need of a new classification that includes the informal sector. We think that the informal sector should be put into a new classification, which is composed of agricultural, informal-sector, formal-sector and public-sector employment.
The last component covers the employment in government and public enterprises. This classification can serve an important function alongside with the traditional classification of agriculture, industry and services. (See, Tables 6, 7.)The importance of this new classification or the inclusion of the informal sector in the new classification arises from the low productivity of the informal sector. It is not higher than agricultural productivity in general, but larger than that of backward regions. It is, on the other hand, considerably lower than formal-sector productivity (Table 13).
The low productivity in these two sectors (agriculture and informal sectors) is a fundamental characteristic of the Turkish labour market. In fact, this low productivity is a better measure of the weakness of the labour market in Turkey than the standard unemployment rate, like in other similar countries, for the following reasons: i) The standard unemployment rate is not highly relevant in a labour market where agriculture dominates. ii) An unemployment insurance system did not exist in Turkey until very recently. In fact, this very new insurance is still not in operation at present.
The unformal sector in sub saharan africa - out of the shadows to forster sus...Dr Lendy Spires
This document discusses the growth of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa and its implications. It argues that the informal sector should be seen as a vibrant part of the economy rather than just a marginalized sector. The informal sector now provides the majority of employment across sub-Saharan Africa and makes up a large portion of GDP. The growth of the informal sector is due to factors like urban bias in development policies, restrictive labor laws, rural-urban migration, and structural adjustment policies. The document recommends establishing policies and regulations that support the growth of the informal sector in order to foster employment, economic growth, and equity.
The document summarizes trends in teen employment in Chicago, Illinois, and the U.S. since 2000. It finds that teen employment rates have plunged, declining most sharply in Chicago. In Chicago, the teen employment rate fell from 32% in 1998-2000 to only 13% in 2011-2013. The economic recession further reduced employment opportunities for teens, especially male and black teens in Chicago. Teen employment is also strongly linked to household income levels, with far fewer teens employed from lower-income households in Chicago. The declines in teen employment could negatively impact teens' long-term economic and educational outcomes.
Migration Pattern and Urban Informal Sector of Bangladesh The Applicability o...ijtsrd
Urbanization in Bangladesh is an emergent phenomenon of recent times. Widespread urbanization facilitates the economy through offering urban centric better employment opportunities to generate greater pull factor which attracts more rural to urban migration. The growing population creates more pressure in urban economy which might led the urban formal sector to perform less effectively. Income differentials between rural and urban area form a greater expected urban income which motivate migrants to change their workplace and move to urban areas. Urban formal sectors have been mislaying its ability to generate diversified income source for those excessive urban job seekers. As a result, higher unemployment rate in urban sector creates more pressure on the economy. People migrating from rural to urban may wish to stay for a considerable period of time with a hope of finding a new settlement and prefer to survive with lack of both social and financial insecurities leading to the establishment of urban slums. Informal sector has led the way to feed those who are unable to get a desired job through offering short time self employment opportunity. Rural to urban migration sometimes act in opposite direction owing to economic downturns when urban sector fails to absorb the jobless labors often encourage reverse migration. Current ongoing COVID 19 pandemic in Bangladesh has led informal sector in a fickle due to continuous lock down situation which compels urban to rural migration for most of the population engaged in informal economic activities in many urban areas of Bangladesh. Naimur Rahman | Faryana Rafiq "Migration Pattern and Urban Informal Sector of Bangladesh: The Applicability of the Harris-Todaro Migration Model in the Presence of COVID-19 Outbreak" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-6 , October 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33690.pdf Paper Url: https://www.ijtsrd.com/economics/other/33690/migration-pattern-and-urban-informal-sector-of-bangladesh-the-applicability-of-the-harristodaro-migration-model-in-the-presence-of-covid19-outbreak/naimur-rahman
This document provides an overview of a literature review on the informal economy conducted jointly by the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED) and The Aspen Institute. It was funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The literature review examines definitions of the informal economy, theories to explain its existence, characteristics of informal workers, industries with high rates of informal work, and estimates of the size of the informal economy. The review aims to understand the intersection between the informal economy and microenterprise programs in the United States.
Rising rate of unemployment in the face of various policies and programmes by the successive Nigeria government prompted the researcher to evaluate the contributions of the once neglected informal sector of the economy
The document analyzes the function of Colombia's informal sector in employment from 1984 to 2000. It summarizes four approaches to conceptualizing the informal sector and describes Colombia's economic conditions over three phases: 1984-1990 saw moderate growth; 1991-1995 included reforms and continued growth; 1996-2000 was a period of economic crisis. The document examines the composition and role of informal sector sub-sectors in the urban labor market, identifying salaried workers, entrepreneurs, and subsistence workers. It argues each sub-sector responds differently to economic conditions.
The document analyzes the function of Colombia's informal sector in employment from 1984 to 2000. It summarizes four approaches to conceptualizing the informal sector and describes Colombia's economic conditions over three phases: 1984-1990 saw moderate growth; 1991-1995 included reforms and continued growth; 1996-2000 was a period of economic crisis. The document examines the composition and role of informal sector sub-sectors in the urban labor market, identifying salaried workers, entrepreneurs, and subsistence workers. It argues each sub-sector responds differently to economic conditions.
THE FUNCTION OF THE URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR IN EMPLOYMENTDr Lendy Spires
The document analyzes the function of Colombia's informal sector in employment from 1984 to 2000. It summarizes four approaches to conceptualizing the informal sector and describes Colombia's economic conditions over three phases: 1984-1990 saw moderate growth; 1991-1995 included reforms and continued growth; 1996-2000 was a period of economic crisis. The document examines the composition and role of informal sector sub-sectors in the urban labor market, identifying salaried workers, entrepreneurs, and subsistence workers. It argues each sub-sector responds differently to economic conditions.
THE FUNCTION OF THE URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR IN EMPLOYMENT Dr Lendy Spires
During 1990’s, “informal economy” seems have lost the interest and urgency characteristic among social scientist during the 1970’s and 1980’s. However, the persistent economic and social downturn that characterized several Latin American countries, including Colombia, during the last decade resurrected interest in the informal economy. The term informal economy1 covers a set of heterogeneous activities, from unpaid labor to any number of unregulated salaried jobs.
This broad range of activities has made it difficult for analysts of the informal sector to agree on its definition. However, there is consensus on two broads points: first, the informal economy is part of the economy at large, which determines its main characteristics and on which it depends; and second, the informal economy is largely defined by activities outside state regulation (Portes, 1994; Broad, 2000). In spite of these two broad agreements, the reasons for the existence of unregulated activities and their function in employment differ and then the implications in terms of labor policies also differ. Some analysts consider the informal sector as the disadvantaged segment of a dualistic labor market and see today’s expansion of the informal economy as part of a more general deterioration of labor market conditions (Tokman, 1992; Klein and Tokman, 2000).
Others view informal economy as unregulated income-earning activities closely related to the formal sector (Portes, 1997). Yet others see in the informal sector signs of incipient entrepreneurship and an escape from state regulation (Maloney, 2000). For others analysts, informalization is not a recent phenomenon but it is a long term, large scale, and systemic phenomenon of the capitalist world-economy (Tabak, 2000). The issue of understanding the function of the informal sector in employment is essential for the design and evaluation of labor policies.
It becomes particular relevant to the Latin American region since most of the countries applied “neoliberal” reforms during the last decade that affected the labor market environment. The globalization of the economy, the privatization process and the flexibilization of labor markets has opened debates on establishing common 1 Informal economy and informal sector are interchangeable used here. labor standards in regional free trade agreements and on the need to regulate labor markets to ensure neat international competition (Maloney, 1997; Klein and Tokman, 2000). For the design of those and other labor policies it is necessary to understand if the informal sector functions as a buffer for employment or it is closely integrated to formal employment.
Lurking in the Cities: Urbanization and the Informal Economy Dr Lendy Spires
This study investigates the empirical relationship between the level of urbanization and size of the informal economy using cross-country datasets proxying GDP and employment shares of urban informal sector. Our estimation results indicate that there is an inverted-U relationship between informality and the level of urbanization. That is, the share of the informal sector grows in the early phases of urbanization due to several pull and push factors; however, it tends to fall in the latter phases. We also show that factors like level of taxes, trade openness, and institutional quality tend to a efect the size of the informal economy....
Urbanization is a process, which is often observed as a frequent consequence of economic development. New industries in urban areas create new job opportunities, stimulating the shift of labor from rural to urban areas. Nevertheless, the growth in formal sector employment might not keep pace with the growing population of new urban dwellers. Still migration towards urban sector continues. As a result, many of the new dwellers end up in informal urban activities. Informal sector or economy, sometimes also titled shadow, hidden, black, parallel, second or underground economy (or sector)...
The shift from the rural to the urban informal sector can be explained by several pull and push factors. In many cases, the urban informal sector oers better opportunities than the rural sector. Earnings can be higher in urban informal employment than in rural occu-pations and urban areas tend to oer better public services due to an urban bias in policies (Lipton, 1976). Even in the cases in which conditions between two sectors are similar, many individuals prefer the urban informal sector with the expectation of finding a job opportunity in the formal sector in the future (Banerjee, 1983).
The technical changes that industrialization brings to urban industry are joined by tech-nical improvements in the rural sector. However, the technical change might be unbalanced and reduce the incomes of small scale producers (Boyce, 1993). It also can damage the non-agricultural activities in the rural sector (Hymer and Resnick, 1969). In addition, in many cases the technical changes in the rural sector are labor-saving (de Janvry, 1981; Boyce, 1993) and pull down the demand for agricultural labor. These processes can lower the incomes of many rural dwellers and push them to the urban informal sector. The pull and push factors that foster the growth of urban informal activities can be greater than any counteracting factors during the early phases of development that involves urbanization stimulated by early industrialization.
The relationship between formal and informal employment in south africaDr Lendy Spires
This thesis examines the relationship between formal and informal employment in South Africa. It analyzes three main theories that have dominated debates on the nature of informal employment: the dualistic labor market theory, the alternative theory, and the structural articulation theory. The dualistic theory views informal employment as a substitute for formal jobs, while the alternative theory sees it as complementary. The structural articulation theory posits that heterogeneous groups exist within the informal sector. Through empirical analysis, the author finds support for the structural articulation theory and evidence that race and income level can identify dynamic and static subgroups within South Africa's informal sector. This implies a need for targeted policy interventions.
The term "informal sector" is today widely used in writings on both developing and developed countries. It is invoked to refer to street vendors in Bogota, shoe-shine workers in Calcutta, specialised knitwear makers in Modena and producers of fashion garments in New York City.
What these activities appear to have in common is a mode of organisation different from the unit of production most familiar in economic theory, the firm or corporation. These activities are also likely to be unregulated by the state and excluded from standard economic accounts of national income. In this paper, I survey the literature on the "informal sector" in an attempt to understand the different applications of the term. I also wish to examine if it is possible and useful to arrive at a definition of the informal sector that can be applied to the different contexts, in the developing and developed world, in which the term is used.
I shall argue that different aspects of regulation by the state provide the key to identifying an informal sector. Research on activities encompassed by the term "informal sector" grew out of studies, in the fifties and sixties, on the dualistic nature of developing societies. The concept of dualism or a dual economy relates to various asymmetries in organisation and production, and dualism in the structure of an economy as between traditional and modern, peasant and capitalist sectors was considered to be a distinguishing characteristic of developing countries.
Development was seen in terms of a shift from a traditional to a modern, an unorganised to an organised, a subsistence to a capitalist economy. Models of dualistic development recognised the interactions between the two sectors and examined their implications for growth. In this literature, the pre-capitalist or traditional economy was expected to decline in relation to the growing capitalist or modern economy. In general, these models assumed a diminishing of the prevailing asymmetries over time and a slow disappearance of dualism in the course of development.
The distinction between formal and informal activities emerged from the attempts of scholars to apply the dualism framework to labour markets in urban areas of developing countries.
The impact of globalisation on the informal sector in africaDr Lendy Spires
The informal sector plays a dominant role in African economies, accounting for around three-quarters of non-agricultural employment. Globalization and economic reforms have contributed to growth of the informal sector and a decline in formal sector jobs over recent decades. This poses a challenge for policymakers who seek to promote growth while improving conditions for informal workers. The paper aims to further understanding of the informal sector in Africa and how globalization impacts it, in order to recommend appropriate policy responses.
The impact of globalization on the infromal sctor in africaDr Lendy Spires
Globalization has impacted Africa's large informal sector in complex ways. The informal sector accounts for 72% of non-agricultural employment in sub-Saharan Africa and is characterized by low wages, long hours, and lack of protections relative to the formal sector. Globalization did not cause the informal sector to decline as initially expected, but rather informal employment grew rapidly in the 1990s. While globalization may bring both benefits and disadvantages, high barriers like lengthy registration processes and high costs of doing business help explain the persistence and growth of Africa's large informal economies. Policymakers face challenges in balancing job creation through the informal sector with improving conditions for informal workers.
The document discusses a survey of 800 slum households in Delhi, India. It finds that:
1) Networks, including kinship, caste, and non-profits, play a key role in accessing urban jobs through information and initial housing.
2) The type of network used varies by occupation. Slums also cluster near certain types of economic activities due to networks and proximity to work.
3) As a result, the urban labor market is highly segmented with variations in activities across different city zones. Uniform policies may not address slum dwellers' diverse needs.
RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION AND URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR IN INDIA: AN INTER-STATE ANAL...Dr Lendy Spires
This document summarizes a research article about rural-urban migration and the urban informal sector in India. It finds that rural-urban migration has increased significantly with economic development in India. Migrants from rural areas often end up working in the urban informal sector due to lack of skills and experience for formal jobs. There is thus a close relationship between rural-urban migration and the growth of the urban informal sector, as migration fuels the informal sector while opportunities in the informal sector also attract more migrants. The document examines trends in internal migration and the informal sector across Indian states and identifies factors like rural unemployment, indebtedness, and industrialization that influence migration patterns.
Rural urban migration and urban informal sector in indiaDr Lendy Spires
This document summarizes a research article about rural-urban migration and the urban informal sector in India. It finds that rural-urban migration has significantly increased the urban informal sector as rural migrants often cannot find formal jobs and end up working in informal jobs. There is a two-way relationship between rural-urban migration and the growth of the urban informal sector, as migration fuels the informal sector and the informal sector then attracts more migrants. The document examines trends in internal migration across Indian states from 1961-2001 and analyzes the growth of employment in formal and informal sectors.
CIOB Research - The Darkside of ConstructionEmma Crates
The document discusses modern slavery in the construction industry globally and provides several examples:
1) An estimated 36 million people are enslaved globally, with construction workers particularly vulnerable due to lack of protections for migrant workers.
2) Examples given include migrant workers in China who lack written contracts and protections, Indian migrant workers who live in poor conditions at worksites, and Canadian temporary foreign workers who fear losing their jobs if they complain.
3) The construction industry relies heavily on migrant labor but often fails to protect workers from exploitation, health and safety issues, and wage theft.
Informal sector and employment generation in nigeria an error correction modelAlexander Decker
This document summarizes a research paper that examines the impact of the informal sector on employment generation in Nigeria from 1970 to 2010. The paper finds that informal sector activities significantly contribute to absorbing the large pool of unemployed labor in Nigeria. However, human capital formation is positively related to unemployment, reflecting lack of government spending on education. The informal sector plays an important role in the Nigerian economy through employment generation, capital mobilization, and entrepreneurship training, but it faces challenges such as lack of infrastructure, financing, and raw materials that have hindered its development and potential impact.
Informal sector and employment generation in nigeria an error correction model
2005 10
1. DOCUMENT DE TRAVAIL DT/2005-10
Informal Sector Versus Informal
Contracts in Nairobi, Kenya
Philippe BOCQUIER
DIAL • 4, rue d’Enghien • 75010 Paris • Téléphone (33) 01 53 24 14 50 • Fax (33) 01 53 24 14 51
E-mail : dial@dial.prd.fr • Site : www.dial.prd.fr
2. INFORMAL SECTOR VERSUS INFORMAL CONTRACTS IN NAIROBI, KENYA
Philippe Bocquier
IRD-Paris, DIAL
philippe.bocquier@afristat.org
Document de travail DIAL
Septembre 2005
ABSTRACT
From official records, it would appear that the labour market significantly shifted from the formal to
the informal sector in Kenya. However, a careful examination of different data sources for Nairobi
show that in the 1990s there has been no direct transfer of employment from the formal sector to
supposedly flourishing informal enterprises, but rather an increasing number of employees informally
contracted by formal enterprises to the expense of social and legal protection of employees. Seven out
of eight jobs in Nairobi still depend on the formal sector, through either formal or informal contracts.
Although migrants form more than three quarters of the active population in Nairobi, migration has
not had a specific impact on the labour market structure and evolution. However, Nairobi became less
attractive to active male migrants during the 1990s as unemployment and lack of opportunity in the
formal sector deterred candidates from in-migrating. The Nairobi labour market also became more
discriminative against women, whose chance to enter and to remain in the labour market reduced
considerably. In the 1990s the combination of higher unemployment, lower female participation rate
and reduced migration of males in active ages resulted in higher dependency on the workforce and in
doubling the absolute poverty in Nairobi.
Keywords: labour market, migration, unemployment, informal sector, gender discrimination, Nairobi,
Kenya.
RESUME
D’après les sources officielles, il pourrait sembler que le marché du travail au Kenya a basculé
sensiblement du secteur formel vers le secteur informel. Cependant, un examen attentif des différentes
sources de données sur Nairobi montre que dans les années 1990 il n’y a pas eu de transfert direct des
emplois du secteur formel vers les entreprises informelles supposées en pleine expansion. Au
contraire, un nombre croissant d’employés est informellement contracté par les entreprises formelles
au détriment de la protection sociale et légale de ces employés. Sept emplois sur huit à Nairobi
dépendent du secteur formel, au travers de contrats formels ou informels. Bien que les migrants
forment les trois quarts de la population active à Nairobi, la migration n’a pas eu un impact spécifique
sur la structure et l’évolution du marché de l’emploi. Cependant, Nairobi attire dans les années 1990
moins de jeunes hommes actifs, du fait que le chômage et le manque d’opportunités dans le secteur
formel a dissuadé les candidats à l’immigration. Le marché de l’emploi à Nairobi est aussi devenu plus
discriminatoire envers les femmes, dont les chances d’entrer et de se maintenir sur le marché de
l’emploi se sont réduites considérablement. Dans les années 1990, la combinaison d’un chômage en
hausse, d’un taux d’activité féminine plus bas et d’un ralentissement de la migration masculine aux
âges actifs a eu pour résultat une augmentation du taux de dépendance et un doublement de la pauvreté
absolue à Nairobi.
Mots clés : marché du travail, migration, chômage, secteur informel, discrimination de genre, Nairobi,
Kenya.
JEL Code : J16, J21, J42, J61.
2
3. Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 5
1. A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF EMPLOYMENT DATA IN KENYA .................................... 6
2. WHAT LIES BEHIND THE GROWTH OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR
IN NAIROBI? ................................................................................................................................. 8
2.1. Data sources and definitions................................................................................................ 9
2.2. Retrospective data and migration bias ............................................................................. 11
2.3. Method of retro-projection and results ............................................................................ 13
3. MIGRATION, UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFORMAL SECTOR GROWTH..................... 18
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................... 21
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 23
List of tables
Table 1: Employment figures by area of residence and sex (people aged 15-64) according to
the Integrated Labour Force Survey (1998/1999), in thousands.......................................................... 8
Table 2: Percentage non-migrants and migrants by age-group at first migration (NUrIP 2001).................... 11
Table 3: Percentage distribution of adult-age male migrants by age-group and duration of residence
in Nairobi according to the Urban Labor Force Survey (1986) and the NUrIP (2001) .................... 11
Table 4: Mean and median age at first migration before age 30 (NUrIP 2001) .............................................. 12
Table 5: Duration of males’ wage employment (1950s-1990s) ........................................................................ 13
Table 6: Proportion of Wage Employment in Urban Areas and Nairobi by sex according to various
sources................................................................................................................................................ 15
Table 7: Estimation of Employment in Nairobi (1989 and 1999), annual percentage growth (1989-1999)
and percentage distribution (population of active age, 15-64) .......................................................... 15
Table 8: Employment figures in Nairobi by sex (population aged 15-64) by retro-projection
of the Nairobi Urban Integration Project (NUrIP) on the 1999 Census ............................................ 16
Table 9 : Small-scale enterprises employment in Nairobi by sex of the employer (population aged 15-64)
by retro-projection of the Nairobi Urban Integration Project (NurIP) on the 1999 Census.............. 16
Table 10 : Unemployment rate before and after migration (migrants between 15 and 30) as compared
to non-migrants by generation and sex .............................................................................................. 19
Table 11 : Formal sector share among occupied migrants before and after migration
(migrants between 15 and 30) as compared to non-migrants by generation and sex ........................ 19
Table 12 : Time to first employment in Nairobi for the city-born or migrants before 15 years old
(Nairobians) by generation and sex ................................................................................................... 20
Table 13 : Time to first employment in Nairobi for the migrants by generation and sex .................................... 20
3
4. List of figures
Figure 1: Kenya public sector employment (left-hand scale) and annual percentage growth
(right-hand scale) (CBS data 1966-2001) ............................................................................................ 6
Figure 2: Employment by sector in Kenya according to CBS data (1966-2001) and ILS (1998-1999) ............... 7
Figure 3: Repartition by sector of the active population by retro-projection of the NUrIP in 1989.................. 14
Figure 4: Repartition by sector of the active population by retro-projection of the NUrIP in 1999.................. 14
4
5. INTRODUCTION
The informal sector growth in Africa is seen by many labour economists as a logical consequence of
the economic downturn that the continent is facing. Employment opportunities became scarce in the
registered private sector whereas the public sector has practically ceased to recruit since the
implementation of the structural adjustment programs (SAPs). The situation in Kenya confirms this
outlined scenario. Kenya adopted a SAP proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as early
as 1980, but with real implementation from 1986, following the fall in the coffee world market price in
1983-84. The aid from IMF to Kenya was suspended in 1998 (Kabubo-Mariara and Kiriti, 2002;
O'Brien and Ryan, 2001).
The effect of those policies was not immediately evident on the labour market. The most obvious
impact was on the public employment sector, as the first section of this paper shows. However, the
impact on the private sector is not clear from the available sources on Kenya. In particular, the
seemingly straightforward question of the importance of the informal sector has no straightforward
answer. This might be surprising to the reader who is no doubt aware that Nairobi hosted a now
famous scientific study on the informal sector by an ILO team in the late 1960s. This study
(ILO, 1972) has triggered a number of studies aimed at explaining the level of unemployment and
underemployment in the urban labour market. Basing their experience on Nairobi, Todaro (1976;
1997), Stiglitz (1974) and many others (to name but a few recent studies inspired by or commenting
on the labour market in Africa: Jamal & Weeks, (1993), Becker & Hamer, (1994), World Bank,
(1995), Mazumdar & Mazaheri, (2002)) refined the theory on the dualism between the rural and urban
economies, by introducing a transition between the two in form of unemployment, in an attempt to
explain why fast urbanisation (and high rural to urban migration) occurred despite low employment
opportunities in the formal sector. Considering the scope of the literature on the subject, and the
historical importance of Nairobi in this literature, it is quite surprising that so little has been done to
measure the evolution of the informal sector share in Nairobi since the 1970s. Most studies conducted
since then have concentrated on the practices of the informal sector (Macharia, 1997) or of the formal
sector (Mazumdar and Mazaheri, 2002), but none have been done on the dynamics of the urban labour
market as a whole. Very few results were published from the two major surveys on national labour
force, the Urban Labour Force Survey of 1986 (Mazumdar and Mazaheri, 2002) and the Integrated
Labour Force Survey of 1998/99 (Republic of Kenya, 2002b).
The lack of data on employment makes it difficult to answer essential questions on the labour market
evolution: why did the informal sector appear to grow so much in recent years and what is the role of
migration in this growth? The fast urban growth observed in the 1960s and 1970s could be explained
by the dualism in the urban areas between the formal and informal sectors (for discussions on the
definition of the informal sector, concept initiated by the work of Hart, (1973) in Ghana, see
Feige, (1990), Dickens & Lang, (1992), Saint-Paul, (1996), Mead & Morrisson, (1996), Portes &
Haller (2002)). In this theory urban unemployment is not the only transitional state towards good
quality jobs. The urban informal sector also forms—for migrants but also more generally for the
poorest—a transitional sector from the traditional sector (agriculture) towards the urban formal sector.
In this view, the informal economy is mainly seen as a reservoir for the under-employed who expect
(and do not necessarily get) higher revenue by eventually entering into the formal sector. The migrants
were supposed to first enter the informal sector to improve their skills, adapt to the city way of life and
then enter the formal, protected sector. Migration is therefore pointed out as a key factor in the
development of the informal economy. However, the highest growth rates in the informal sector were
observed in the 1980s and 1990s when urban growth rates appear to decline. In the case of Kenya,
Nairobi’s growth rate was never as high as in the 1960s (12.2% per year in 1962-69) and has since
been fairly constant (ranging between 4.8% and 5.0% per year). Did the migrants really form the bulk
of the labour force employed in the informal sector? Can the growth of the informal sector essentially
be attributed to migration?
Apart from the dynamics of the labour market with regard to migration, there could also be
institutional reasons behind the registered growth of the informal sector. We mentioned earlier that
5
6. part of the growth in official figures could originate in a better coverage of the registration system
through the improvement of taxation. It could also be that the informal enterprises were encouraged to
employ more labour. The official policy regarding the informal sector has certainly changed over the
years. As pointed out by historians, the State or the City Council in Kenya since colonial times to date
have always hesitated between repression (the informal sector being ruled out as illegal, or even
politically threatening) and control (if not integration in the formal economy) of petty traders mainly
through taxation (Robertson, 2002). In the late 50s, under the Operation Anvil, petty traders allegedly
hid Mau Mau militants, while since independence they have been said to nurture multiparty activists
or political opposition at large since the instauration of multiparty system. On one hand they are
considered a threat to tax-paying traders and enterprises, thus resulting in unfair trade, but on the other
hand are also considered as a possible safety net to high unemployment and poverty. Small-scale
manufacturing and crafts (popularly known in Kenya as the Jua Kali sector) were even at times
officially supported, e.g. through the creation in 1987 of a Small Scale Enterprises Unit within the
Ministry of National Planning and Development (Robertson, 2002), through the creation in 1988 of
the Ministry of Technical Training and Applied Technology, nicknamed the Jua Kali Ministry
(Macharia, 1997), or through the Sessional Paper N°2 of 1992 on the Small-Scale and Jua Kali
Enterprises (Republic of Kenya, 2002b). For example, metal sheds were erected to hide from the
‘fierce sun’ in Kamukunji (an area well known for its informal sector activities), which is a way to
give more dignity to those activities. The National Development Plans from 1997 state that the
Government institutions will collaborate with non-public organisations to promote the growth of the
informal sector. Did the public policy really change anything in the nature and relative importance of
the informal sector in Nairobi’s economy?
1. A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF EMPLOYMENT DATA IN KENYA
According to the Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) data, the public employment sector
increased at a 5.7% average annual growth from 1966 to 1988 (Figure 1), a much higher rate than the
average growth of the population in the country (3.4%). This growth was at the expense of the public
employees’ income: the average real wage in the public sector declined by about –2.9% per year, a
rate more than two times higher that the –1.2% decline in average real wage in the private sector
(Mazumdar and Mazaheri, 2002). Public employment annual growth declined from 7.3% in 1988 to
2.2% in 1991, the year when the public sector employment reached its maximum (715 100
employees). The growth was negative (around -2%) in 1992-1993, and hovered around 0% in
1994-2000. It was greatly negative (-4.9%) in 2001. The trend for the 1990s show a reduction of
public sector employment to 658 000 in 2001, mainly by reductions in Central Government bodies
(50 000 low-wage employees were retrenched by way of early retirement in 1993-98) but also by
elimination of so-called ‘ghost-workers’ through computerisation of the pay-roll (O'Brien and
Ryan, 2001).
Figure 1: Kenya public sector employment (left-hand scale) and annual percentage growth
(right-hand scale) (CBS data 1966-2001)
6
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
-4%
-6%
Total employment
Percentage growth
7. Figure 2: Employment by sector in Kenya according to CBS data (1966-2001) and ILS
7
(1998-1999), in thousands
3327
1738
4428
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1966
1971
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
Total initial informal sector (CBS)
Total revised informal sector (CBS)
Private formal sector (CBS)
Public sector
Private formal sector (ILS)
Informal sector (ILS)
Small-scale agriculture (ILS)
Nevertheless the lack of employment perspective was not only blatant in the public sector. Indeed,
according to the official publications of the CBS (Republic of Kenya, 1970-2002), the share of the
informal sector continued to increased from the early 90s. In Nairobi, the proportion employed in the
informal sector would have increased from 44.3% in 1992 to 72.3% in 2001. It would appear that the
labour market significantly shifted from the formal to the informal sector. This would confirm that the
informal sector is a valuable alternative for retrenched formal sector employees as well as for youth
entering the labour market. However the mode of computation on which these last figures are drawn is
not clear and need to be compared with household surveys sources.
The Integrated Labour Force Survey (referred to as the ILS in official reports) is more comprehensive
in its scope and uses internationally accepted definitions for employment sectors
(Republic of Kenya, 2002a). The ILS evaluates employment at the time of the survey, i.e.
December 1998 to January 1999 (see Table 1). The estimation of public sector employment differs
only by about 50 to 70 thousand between CBS data (711 000 in 1998 and 699 000 in 1999) and ILS
data (769 000 in 1998-1999). The difference might be due to sampling approximation in the ILS
(e.g. Nairobi was under-represented in the sample, as we shall see) or to the interpretation of public
employment definition (e.g. contracts with public administration or enterprises).
More worrying is the difference in estimating the formal and informal private sectors. At first glance,
Figure 2 seems to show that the estimation of the informal sector is about the same from both sources
(between 3.3 and 3.7 million in 1998-1999). However the differences in the estimation of the formal
sector (1 million according to CBS, 1.7 according to the ILS) casts some doubt about the exact
categories estimated by the CBS. A change in definition was introduced in the CBS data in 1991,
though we could not find an explanation in the published reports on the exact change implemented.
But more disturbing is the very steep upward trend shown by the CBS data, even considering constant
definitions of the informal sector over time. Our opinion is that this trend shows more the
improvement of the CBS permanent registration system of informal enterprises—probably through the
taxation system—rather than a real expansion of the informal sector.
Because it relies on household data, the ILS should be more reliable despite sampling errors.
According to this survey the share of the informal sector (as approximated by non-wage employment
as opposed to self-employment) in the labour market (after excluding small-scale agriculture and
pastoral activities) was 69.2% in rural areas and 43.5% in urban areas, which is particularly low
compared to other African urban areas. However the time at which the survey was carried out—
December 1998 to January 1998, when many workers are on annual leave in accordance with the
school calendar—might have led to some bias as the last week before the interviews served as the
reference to estimate labour participation. This is most surprising since the ILS had an important
8. module on child labour, which was much more subject to the school calendar constraint than adult
labour was. The labour participation question served as a filter so that workers on leave would not
answer to specific questions on occupation (such as status of occupation, type of occupation, sector
and industry, hours worked) and school-children who worked during their holiday would appear to
participate in the labour force and answer to questions on occupation.
Another bias could be introduced by the question relative to the sector of occupation. Respondents
were asked to tell the interviewer if their employment fell into public formal sector, private formal
sector, informal sector (the term Jua Kali—fierce sun—is explicitly used in the questionnaire), small-scale
farming and pastoral activities or other to specify. The specifics of each sector were only given
in the interviewer’s manual. No precise questions—i.e. on written accountancy, records, contracts,
etc.—were used to categorise the employment, so that the answers are subjected to the view and
perception of both the respondent and the interviewer. Furthermore, the ILS also has a major
drawback for the purpose of estimating employment in Nairobi: the sample size is particularly small
(810 respondents, of all ages, interviewed in Nairobi out of 52 016 interviewed in the whole country)
and 5 times under-represented (1.56% in the sample against 7.47% in the population). This is why
some statistics (like the share of wage or informal employment) were not produced for Nairobi only,
even though with more than 2 million inhabitants at the time it was the largest urban labour market in
the country.
Table 1: Employment figures by area of residence and sex (people aged 15-64) according to the
Integrated Labour Force Survey (1998/1999), in thousands
In ’000 Rural Urban Nairobi Kenya
MalesFemales Total Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total
Formal sector
(wage employment) 719.2 224.7 943.9 1085.6 477.8 1563.4 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1804.8 702.5 2507.3
of which public sector n.a. n.a. 64.5# n.a. n.a. 705.0# n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 769.5
Informal sector 1182.8 939.5 2122.4 635.4 569.2 1204.6 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1818.2 1508.7 3326.9
Small-scale agriculture
and pastoralists 1705.2 2571.0 4276.2 65.5 86.6 152.0 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1770.7 2657.5 4428.2
Total employed 3652.3 3804.8 7457.1 1821.5 1247.0 3068.5 592.8 323.2 916.0 5473.8 5051.8 10525.6
Unemployed 332.4 439.5 771.9 260.1 768.6 1028.7 n.a. n.a. 288.2 592.5 1208.2 1800.6
Inactive 1393.8 1559.9 2953.7 314.2 331.4 645.6 n.a. n.a. 191.1 1707.9 1891.3 3599.2
Grand total 5378.5 5804.3 11182.4 2395.7 2347.0 4742.7 n.a. n.a. 1395.3 7774.2 8151.3 15925.5
Labour participation
rate 74.1% 73.1% 73.6% 86.9% 85.9% 86.4% n.a. n.a. 86.3% 78.0% 76.8% 77.4%
Unemployment rate 8.3% 10.4% 9.4% 12.5% 38.1% 25.1% n.a. n.a. 23.9% 9.8% 19.3% 14.6%
Informal sector share
(self-employment
62.2% 80.7% 69.2% 36.9% 54.4% 43.5% n.a. n.a. n.a. 50.2% 68.2% 57.0%
share)
Public sector share of
formal n.a. n.a. 6.8% n.a. n.a. 45.1% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 30.7%
Public sector share of
total n.a. n.a. 0.9% n.a. n.a. 23.0% n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 7.3%
Source: CBS, 2002. n.a.: not available. #: approximation from 1998 and 1999 data, rural evaluated as public sector employees working in
8
Agriculture & Forestry or in Mining & Quarrying.
2. WHAT LIES BEHIND THE GROWTH OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN NAIROBI?
To fill in the data gap, we had to resort to a combination of Census data and of the Nairobi Urban
Integration Project (NUrIP) data. We relied on the Census to get absolute figures of the number
employed or not employed whereas we used the NUrIP to get estimations of the different rates. Before
going into the details of the computation, we will first explain the nature of the NUrIP survey and the
employment-related definitions used in that survey. More extensive results are available in other
publications (Agwanda et al. 2004a; Agwanda et al., 2004b).
9. 2.1. Data sources and definitions
The NUrIP survey is a retrospective survey aiming at collecting the biographies of a representative
sample of three generations aged 45-54, 35-44 and 25-34 at the time of data collection (mid-January to
mid-May 2001) in Nairobi Province (which is also a District). The sampling procedure is multistage,
proportional to population size (PPS). The first stage consisted of stratification of the main
administrative areas (8 Divisions: the population of the agglomeration outside the administrative
boundaries was not sampled, although it is estimated that Greater Nairobi is about 15% larger than
Nairobi Province). The second stage consisted of surveying 115 Enumeration Areas (EAs) scattered
among the eight administrative divisions. In the third stage, a household list was established for each
EA identified. The fourth stage consisted of sampling the individuals drawn from the sampled
households using unequal sampling probability to obtain a comparable number of biographies for each
sex and age groups. Out of the 3 787 households surveyed, 1 577 biographies were collected.
The biographical questionnaire is adapted from the so-called Urban Integration Surveys conducted
elsewhere in Africa (Antoine and Bocquier, 1997; Antoine et al., 2000; Antoine, Ouédraogo and
Piché, 1998). The rationale of this questionnaire is to collect the aspects of individual lives that change
over time and that can be easily remembered and dated. Each part (module) of the questionnaire relate
to residential, professional and family events:
1. One module pertains to change of residence from birth to the time of interview. It traces migratory
routes including change of residences withing the city. It particularly focuses on housing
conditions and access to services (water, electricity, etc.) and on the evolution of residential status
(tenant, landowner, and housed).
2. In the module on activities, all periods in active life are recorded including unemployment,
schooling and other training period. Changes in status for the same employment (e.g. changes in
duties, promotion, etc.) are also taken into account.
3. Marital status, including all complex forms of union (from informal union i.e. simple cohabitation,
9
to monogamy and polygamy) is recorded.
4. The last module pertains to fertility history and to the education and residence of each surviving
child.
Before the biographical questionnaire is filled, an AGEVENT form (short for “Age and Event
recording form”) helps the interviewer to sketch the biography (Antoine, Bry and Diouf, 1987). It is
used to better capture the time of occurrence of events experienced by the interviewee. Family events
such as births, marriage, deaths, etc., are first recorded on this form as they are usually the best
remembered and also because they are often officially recorded. After this, residential and professional
events are recorded and placed along a time-scale, where main historical events are also mentioned. In
this way ordering is easily achieved and confirmed. Only changes separated by more than 6 months
are recorded, except for period of unemployment which can be captured by a specific question if they
lasted between 1 to 6 months. Otherwise, the biographical questionnaire will only record a period of
6 months or more.
With regard to recording periods of activity, employment is divided into three rather than two
distinctive categories. The formal sector is composed of registered employees and self-employed
individuals or employers who hold written accounts of their business. In the NUrIP survey, the
criterion for registration is that the employee received a payslip, an indicator that the employer follows
the rules of modern accountancy and is probably paying taxes. In the formal sector, employees are
supposedly protected by law and benefit from some sort of health security—through National Health
Insurance Fund (NHIF) or other private schemes—and retirement benefit—through the minimum
public service, National Social Security Fund (NSSF) or through their employer’s private schemes—,
if not from unemployment or early retirement benefits. The self-employed or employers are classified
in the formal sector when they declared holding written accounts in personal books or through formal
accountancy.
10. The informal sector is defined by opposition to the above. It is itself divided into two sub-sectors: the
upper tier informal sector and the lower tier informal sector. In the NUrIP survey, the employees
without payslips are included in the informal sector. Among those, the employees whose salary is
recorded either in logbook or in other forms (payment voucher, receipt) are classified in the upper tier
informal sector. These types of record indicate that the employer is using some formal accountancy
(itself indicating a formal type of enterprise), but the protection of the employee is weak, even though
a written proof of employment can be used in court in case of a conflict between the employee and the
employer. In the upper tier informal sector, employees do not usually benefit from health, retirement
or other benefits, but they can resort to the law when they really need to and can afford it. Employees
with salaries not recorded in any way are classified in the lower tier informal sector and this indicates
that the employer did not use formal accountancy either for all employees or for that particular
employee. Consequently, the lower tier informal sector employees are almost unprotected with regard
to the law, in addition to receiving no health, retirement and other benefits.
The self-employed are classified in the informal sector when they declared holding no written
accounts in personal books or through formal accountancy. The informal character of the business
usually comes from the capacity of its owner rather than from an intention to evade paying taxes or
trade license although this can of course be a reason. Owners of informal sector businesses usually
lack the capacity and skill to follow formal accountancy rules. The upper and lower tiers of the
informal sector employers are not differentiated because of the small numbers of employers using
formal accountancy rules. The upper tier informal sector employers (accountancy in personal books)
are actually merged with the minority of formal sector employers (with formal accountancy) for
convenience and because some sort of written accountancy is an indicator that the enterprise is
subjected to some sort of control by the fiscal authorities by way of tax collection (mainly trading
licence).
Note that the above definitions classify individuals and not enterprises, unless we are referring to the
self-employed who can also be employers. In particular, it is not possible in the NUrIP survey to know
to which sector the enterprise an employee of the informal sector works for belongs to. For example,
we could have asked about the size of the enterprise the employees worked for. This question was
tested in other urban integration surveys elsewhere in Africa but results proved unreliable as many
employees did not know the size of their enterprise, let alone the type of accountancy. It is therefore
important to bear in mind that there can be a difference between the category of an enterprise and the
way its employees are registered. Some employers in the formal sector evade taxes and reduce costs of
employment by not registering their employees in their books even though the business itself remains
properly registered. Therefore, our definitions differ from the internationally accepted definition of the
sector of an enterprise, where all employees of an enterprise belong to the sector of this enterprise. We
preferred to use definitions at the individual level to analyse more closely the working conditions of
employees, i.e. the quality of employment.
Although the longitudinal nature of the survey makes it suitable for event history analysis (for this
type of analysis on the same data, see Agwanda and Bocquier, 2003; Agwanda et al., 2004a), the
NUrIP data can also be used for cross-sectional analysis. It is possible with this survey to compute the
evolution of an aggregate (e.g. labour participation, informal sector share) at different dates before the
survey. However, because of the retrospective nature of the survey, such aggregates can only be
computed for respondents who were present in Nairobi as they were interviewed. The survey misses
out the migrants who migrated temporarily in Nairobi and left for another destination (be it their place
of origin or another one). The survey also omits the inhabitants who died before the time of the survey.
For these reasons, the sample cannot be fully representative of all the population that had at one time
lived in Nairobi. Therefore the sample mostly represents the sedentary population (urban natives and
permanent migrants) and the analyses concerns in particular the Nairobi-born, the migrants who grew
up in Nairobi and the migrants who settled for a long period in Nairobi. In that respect, a retrospective
survey cannot be a substitute for a permanent system of observation capable of producing yearly
indices.
10
11. 2.2. Retrospective data and migration bias
Migration is an important potential source of bias and more so given that migration has always been a
major phenomenon in Nairobi. The data shown in Table 2 pertains to the age at the time of migration,
showing the age selectivity of migrants. The proportion of city-born (as opposed to the so-called life-time
migrants) is low. It is less than 10% for the older generation (aged 45-54 at the time of our
survey) but reaches no more than 20% in the younger generation (aged 25-34) for both sexes. In the
following, we use a less restrictive definition of non-migrants by joining the respondents born in
Nairobi with those who migrated before they were 15 years old. We will henceforth refer to this
category as the ‘Nairobians’ or the non-migrants. Even with this extended definition, the Nairobians
represent only 15% to 30% depending on the generation, with very little variation by gender.
Table 2: Percentage non-migrants and migrants by age-group at first migration (NUrIP 2001)
Males Females
11
Generation Born in
Nairobi
Migrants
0-14
Migrants
15-29
Migrants
30+
N=
100%
Born in
Nairobi
Migrants
0-14
Migrants
15-29
Migrants
30+
N=
100%
45-54 9.9 5.2 59.9 25.0 232 9.8 6.4 61.7 20.9 326
35-44 15.8 9.6 64.5 10.1 228 17.6 7.5 64.4 10.5 267
25-34 18.4 8.1 72.2 0.9 223 20.1 9.4 69.8 0.6 308
Migration is certainly high by any standard and remained so through generations. It is however
fortunate that migration patterns in Nairobi have not changed much since the 1970s. We have seen
already that the population growth of Nairobi has been fairly constant. What is even more remarkable
is that the duration of residence did not change much either. This we can verify by comparing the
results of the NUrIP with a specific tabulation by Mazumdar and Mazaheri (2002: p.131) from the
Urban Labour Force Survey (ULFS) conducted in 1986.
Table 3: Percentage distribution of adult-age male migrants by age-group and duration of
residence in Nairobi according to the Urban Labor Force Survey (1986) and the
NUrIP (2001)
ULFS 1986 Less than
1 year 1-2 3-4 5-9 10-14 15+ Total N= Median
duration*
Median age
at migration
Age-group 15-19 26.6 21.5 3.8 17.7 20.3 10.1 100 68 3.0 n.a.
in 1986 20-24 18.8 33.5 20.5 16.1 5.4 5.8 100 194 2.5 n.a.
25-29 6.9 10.2 20.4 47.3 10.2 5.1 100 238 6.5 n.a.
30-34 2.2 2.7 4.9 38.4 34.6 17.3 100 160 10.0 n.a.
35-39 0.7 4.0 4.0 14.5 37.5 39.5 100 132 13.5 n.a.
40-49 1.0 3.1 4.2 12.4 10.4 68.9 100 131 n.a. n.a.
50+ 0.9 2.8 0.9 4.6 10.1 80.7 100 167 n.a. n.a.
Total 15+ 7.4 11.5 10.6 24.8 17.1 28.5 100 1051 9.0 n.a.
Total 25-49 2.9 5.2 8.8 27.6 19.7 35.7 100 661 11.5 n.a.
NUrIP 2001 Less than
1 year 1-2 3-4 5-9 10-14 15+ Total N= Median
duration
Median age
at migration
Age-group 25-29 1.0 9.7 19.4 51.5 12.6 5.8 100 103 6.8 20.8
in 2001 30-34 0.0 5.1 8.9 21.5 49.4 15.2 100 79 11.3 20.4
35-39 0.0 0.0 5.4 15.2 24.1 55.4 100 112 15.9 21.4
40-44 0.0 1.3 3.8 10.0 12.5 72.5 100 80 21.2 20.7
44-49 2.0 2.0 1.0 8.0 9.0 78.0 100 100 24.5 22.7
50-54 0.0 2.8 1.8 5.5 3.7 86.2 100 109 28.4 23.4
Total 25-54 0.5 5.1 10.4 27.5 23.1 33.4 100 583 11.4 20.8
Total 25-49 0.5 5.3 11.1 29.3 24.6 29.3 100 474 10.8 20.7
Source: NUrIP-2001; Mazumdar & Mazaheri (2002) p.131 from Urban Labor Force Survey, 1986, original tabulations. n.a.: not available.
* Our own approximation for median age in ULFS. Total for NUrIP is a sample-weighted average. Comparable series are marked
in bold characters.
12. Despite the 15-year span, the results are remarkably similar for comparable age-groups (Table 3). The
median ages and the distribution for age-groups 25 to 39 are greatly in accordance, showing only a
slightly longer duration of residence in 2001. The median age at migration computed from the NUrIP
(last column of Table 3) shows a decline in the youngest generations of males. However the median is
computed here for all migrations irrespective of age: the older generation could have a higher median
age at migration simply because of age limitation (e.g. the generation aged 30-34 at the time of the
survey could not have migrated after 35 years old). To limit this measurement bias we computed a
series of median ages for migration before age 30 for both males and females (Table 4). Only for the
generation 25-34 does a slight downward measurement bias remain.
Table 4: Mean and median age at first migration before age 30 (NUrIP 2001)
Males Females
12
Generation Mean Median Interquartile
range
N=
100% Mean Median Interquartile
range
N=
100%
45-54 21.1 21.4 5.1 151 20.2 20.0 5.3 222
35-44 20.0 20.3 5.5 169 19.9 19.2 6.5 192
25-34* 20.0 20.5 4.3 179 19.3 19.5 5.4 244
* All indicators for the generation 25-34 are slightly biased downward but the median is less sensitive to this bias.
What is most striking about the figures in Table 4 is that the age at first migration is heavily
concentrated around the median. The interquartile range shows that 50% of the distribution is
concentrated on 4.3 to 6.5 years around the median, depending on generation and gender. In other
words, half the migrants came to Nairobi between 17 and 23 years old or so, and that did not change
much over the past 40 years.
If most migrants stayed permanently and formed their family in the city, we could expect a much
higher growth rate for Nairobi than the less than 5% actually observed. This is possible only because
of a circular migration system. Most of the migrants come as young adults, usually after secondary
school. As seen later in this article, a majority of migrants comes to Nairobi to look for employment or
after being offered an employment. A minority comes for vocational or higher education. The majority
of migrants are males—a pattern that traces back to the colonial times. The male to female ratio has
shifted from 16 men to 1 woman at the beginning of the 20th century, to 3.5 men to 1 woman in 1948,
1.47 to 1 in 1969, 1.38 to 1 in 1979, 1.31 to 1 in 1989, to 1.15 to 1 in 1999. The figures are even
higher in the population of active age (15-64), although also declining: the indices were 1.83 in 1969,
1.68 in 1979, 1.51 in 1989 and 1.24 in 1999. The male to female ratio is more balanced now than ever
before, but meanwhile the city has witnessed a low and declining fertility. In 1988/89 the Total
Fertility Rate (TFR, i.e. mean number of children per female) was 4.6 in Nairobi compared to 6.7 for
Kenya, and ten years later in 1998 the TFR dropped to 2.6 in Nairobi compared to 4.7 for Kenya. Few
migrants form families in Nairobi and in addition many of their children were actually born and raised
outside Nairobi, notably when starting school and until they finish secondary education. This explains
why there has always been an abnormally low proportion of children (aged less than 15) in Nairobi
(the proportion declined from 34.6% in 1969 to 31.1% in 1999) compared to Kenya as a whole (55.2%
to 43.7%). The low fertility and the specific living arrangements of the family are meant to lower the
cost of education, which is not easily accessible to most of the city dwellers. At older ages, the retired
employees do not stay long in Nairobi and contribute to the return-migration flow to places of origin.
The basic principles of the circular migration system had probably been put in place in the 1950s. The
system is fairly stable since the mid 1960s and has been gradually modified by the rising level of
education of women, who entered the labour force in the 1970s and 1980s and led to a more balanced
gender distribution of the Nairobi population.
The fact that migration patterns did not change much over the year is reassuring but does not validate
retrospective aggregates. Biases could still occur if there was a selection of specific migrants over the
years. Another way to check that aggregates computed retrospectively do not differ too much from
reality, is to compare the NUrIP estimates with estimates from historical sources. One indicator that
we found available in the literature is the duration of first employment. Collier and Lal, (1986)
estimated the quit rates by job duration among Nairobi African wage earners (almost all being males)
13. using different surveys for the year 1953, 1957 and 1968. From these, we computed the median
number of years in the employment bracket as well as the percentage still in current job after 5 and 10
years. We computed the same estimates from the NUrIP. From Table 5 we first notice the considerable
change in employment duration from the beginning of the 1950s to the end of the 1960s. In 1953 84%
of wage employees stayed less than five years in their current employment, compared to 50% in 1957
and 41% only in 1968. The median duration of employment jumped from 1.1 to 4 years and then to
6.7 years. Collier and Lal attribute this change to the policy that followed the Carpenter report of 1954
recommending the increase in minimum wage in order to stabilize labour in the city of Nairobi1. The
second remarkable feature of Table 5 is that our estimate for the 1970s based on the NUrIP matches
quite well with the trend observed by Collier and Lal. The selection bias generally attributed to
retrospective data, even for events dating back to the 1970s, does not seem to be strong enough to
impair the validity of our retrospective estimates. The selection of the most successful migrants does
not seem to be so great as to considerably bias the estimates. The Collier and Lal estimates together
with the NUrIP estimates show that wage employment duration remained remarkably stable from the
mid 1950s.
Table 5: Duration of males’ wage employment (1950s-1990s)
13
Sources: Carpenter
survey 1953
Forrester
survey 1957
Thias &
Carnoy
survey 1968
NUrIP
Gen. 45-54
NurIP
Gen. 35-44
NUrIP
Gen. 25-34
Approximate average date of
beginning of employment: c. 1952 c. 1953 c. 1961 c. 1970 c. 1980 c. 1991
Proportion having ceased
their employment:
before 5 years 84% 50% 41% 46% 42% 43%
before 10 years 96% 66% 72% 66% 73% n.a.
Duration (years) of first
employment:
First quartile <1 1.5 2.4 2.8 3.3 2.7
Second quartile (median) 1.1 4.0 6.7 6.5 5.8 5.8
Third quartile 2.5 >12* >10* 14.7 11.3 n.a.
Person-years at risk n.a. n.a. n.a. 1566 1176 611
Source: NUrIP (2001) and our own computation from Table 8.5 in Collier and Lal (1986), citing different surveys.
*: approximate values by projection over the 10 years time-limit of the published table. na.: not available.
The consistency of migration and duration of employment indices computed from retrospective NUrIP
data and cross-sectional data is an indication that the NUrIP is not affected as much by the migrant
selection bias. The migrants sampled by the NUrIP in 2001 seem to represent fairly well the migrants
who lived in Nairobi for some time and might have left for some other destination before 2001. There
is sufficient evidence to support the use of retrospective estimates at least for the years 1989 and 1999,
when Censuses were conducted in Kenya.
2.3. Method of retro-projection and results
From the NUrIP retrospective survey, we can easily compute a number of rates that can help us
estimate the composition of the labour market and its evolution over time, albeit with some cautious
computation due to the age-limitation of the NUrIP sample of biographies. The biographies are
collected from a sample of males and females aged 25 to 54 at the time of the survey, i.e. in the first
half of 2001. Considering that the last Census took place in August 1999, and the last but one in
August 1989, our sample was aged about 23 ½ to 53 ½ at the 1999 Census, and 13 ½ to 43 ½ at the
1989 Census. Therefore age-groups which are strictly comparable from one period to the other are
23 ½ to 43 ½. By five-year age-groups of active age (15 to 64), it means that projections are to be
computed up to age-group 20-24 for the year 1999 and from age-group 40-44 for the year 1989 and
50-54 for the year 1999. Note that we can use the trend observed from age-group 15-19 to age-group
20-24 for the year 1989 to project missing estimates for 1999. The trend from age-group 40-44
1 For a full discussion of the different wage policies from the 1950s to the 1980s, see Mazumdar & Mazaheri (2002).
14. to age-group 45-49, and even 50-54, for the year 1999 can also be used to project missing estimates
for 1999. However estimates after 55 years old cannot be obtained from our data and can only be
guessed at. Fortunately, the age-composition of the Nairobi population is such that the population
aged 55 and above represents only 2.5% of the population of active age in 1989 and 1999. False
hypotheses about this age-group are unlikely to affect the aggregated estimates.
Figures 1 and 2, where doted lines represent projections, illustrate the above. By applying this method
to Census estimates by age-group and sex, we are able to produce a number of estimates regarding the
repartition of the labour force by sector of the economy. Simple aggregates are computed here for
comparison of the Nairobi labour market between 1989 and 1999, while more refined estimates are
computed for 1999 and offer a valuable alternative to the figures produced by the ILS-1998/99.
Figure 3: Repartition by sector of the active population by retro-projection of the NUrIP in 1989
14
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0%
0.0%
Informal (lower tier)
Informal (upper tier)
Formal
15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54
Figure 4: Repartition by sector of the active population by retro-projection of the NUrIP in 1999
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0%
0.0%
Informal (lower tier)
Informal (upper tier)
Formal
15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54
Table 7 is based on the results of the retro-projection for 1989 and 1999, while Table 8 and Table 9
limit themselves to 1999. Table 6 compares our results for wage employment rates with the ILS
estimation for 1998/99 and with a World Bank estimation for 1980 (Fallon, 1985). According to the
ILS, the share of wage employment in the labour market (excluding small-scale agriculture and
pastoral activities) was 30.8% in rural areas and 56.5% in urban areas, which is particularly high
compared to other African urban areas, but appears to be declining from a higher estimate for 1980
(74.9%). Unfortunately this statistic on employment was not produced for Nairobi only, again for
sampling reasons. Our estimates show that the share of wage employment would have decreased from
72.7% in 1989 to 60.2% in 1999 for Nairobi, a figure consistent with the 56.5% computed by the ILS
for all urban areas.
15. Table 6: Proportion of Wage Employment in Urban Areas and Nairobi by sex according to
15
various sources
1980 1989 1999
Urban wage employment share: Total 74.9% n.a. 56.5%
Male n.a. n.a. 63.1%
Female n.a. n.a. 45.6%
Nairobi wage employment share: Total n.a. 72.7% 60.2%
Male n.a. 77.4% 64.9%
Female n.a. 62.0% 50.0%
Sources: Fallon(1985) using different sources for 1980; ILS 1998/99 for urban areas; NUrIP retro-projection on the 1989 and 1999 Census
data for Nairobi.
The number of wage employees in Nairobi would have increased at an annual rate of 1.7% only,
against 7.6% for non-wage employment (Table 7). Using our definition of sector, the informal sector
(lower and upper tiers) would have increased from 40.0% in 1989 to 44.7% in 1999. The NUrIP
estimates for the lower and upper tiers informal sector in Nairobi translate into a 4.8% annual growth
in the inter-census period (1989-1999), as against 3.6% for the population employed in Nairobi, and
4.9% for the entire Nairobi population. In the meantime, formal sector share decreased from 60.0% to
55.3%, i.e. only growing at a 2.7% annual rate, 2 percentage points less than the informal sector. The
upper tier informal sector grew at 3.8% a year, a little more than the entire employed population, but
more for women (7.6%) than for men (2.9%). The growth of the informal sector is mainly attributed to
the lower tier informal sector, which experienced a 5.3% annual growth, rising from 25.8% in 1989 to
30.3% in 1999. It is also striking that this increase is essentially due to women (6.1% annual growth as
against 4.7% for men).
The unemployment rate in Nairobi was evaluated at 23.9% by the ILS (25.1% for all urban areas) as
against 13.8% in the NUrIP and 15.5% in the 1999 Census. This important difference might be
explained by a difference in definition (NUrIP relies on retrospective records biased towards long
periods of unemployment), and also by the classification by the ILS of many inactive people as
unemployed, leading not only to a higher unemployment rate but also to a higher labour participation
rate (86.3%) than in the retro-projection based on the NUrIP (74.5%) or in the 1999 Census (74.2%).
In addition, the differences might be related to the small sample used for Nairobi by the ILS, and also
that it was probably biased toward middle-class areas (unemployment is notoriously higher among
educated youth).
Table 7: Estimation of Employment in Nairobi (1989 and 1999), annual percentage growth
(1989-1999) and percentage distribution (population of active age, 15-64)
1989 1999
In ‘000; decennial percentage growth in brackets Males Females Total Males Females Total
Formal sector 245.7 110.4 356.0 328.9 138.0 466.9
annual % growth 1989-99 formal 3.0% 2.3% 2.7%
Informal sector: 165.6 71.5 237.0 244.7 133.3 377.9
annual % growth 1989-99 informal 4.0% 6.4% 4.8%
upper tier informal sector all employed 70.0 14.2 84.1 92.8 29.4 122.2
annual % growth 1989-99 upper tier 2.9% 7.6% 3.8%
Lower tier informal sector all employed 95.6 57.3 152.9 151.9 103.9 255.7
annual % growth 1989-99 lower tier 4.7% 6.1% 5.3%
Wage employment (all sectors) 318.2 112.8 431.0 372.5 135.7 508.2
annual % growth 1989-99 wage employees 1.6% 1.9% 1.7%
All employed 411.2 181.9 593.1 573.5 271.3 844.8
annual % growth 1989-99 all emploeyd 3.4% 4.1% 3.6%
% distribution Males Females Total Males Females Total
Formal sector 59.7% 60.7% 60.0% 57.3% 50.9% 55.3%
Informal sector, of which: 40.3% 39.3% 40.0% 42.7% 49.1% 44.7%
upper tier informal sector all employed 17.0% 7.8% 14.2% 16.2% 10.8% 14.5%
lower tier Informal sector all employed 23.3% 31.5% 25.8% 26.5% 38.3% 30.3%
Wage employment (all sectors) 77.4% 62.0% 72.7% 64.9% 50.0% 60.2%
All employed 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Note: This table and the two following tables are based on indicators computed from the biographical NUrIP data and retro-projected on
the Census data for 1989 and 1999. The formal sector includes employees with payslip and self-employed with formal
accountancy. The upper tier informal sector includes employees with some kind of record but no payslip whereas the lower tier
informal sector is constituted of employees with no record and self-employed with no written accountancy.
16. Table 8: Employment figures in Nairobi by sex (population aged 15-64) by retro-projection of
the Nairobi Urban Integration Project (NUrIP) on the 1999 Census
In ‘000 Male Female Total
Formal sector employees 234.1 84.2 318.3
Upper tier informal sector employees 92.8 29.4 122.2
Lower tier informal sector employees 104.5 66.8 171.2
Total employees 431.4 180.3 611.7
Self-employed formal sector 94.8 53.9 148.6
Self-employed informal sector 47.4 37.1 84.5
Total self-employed 142.1 91.0 233.1
Employed all sectors: 573.5 271.3 844.8
of which wage employees 372.5 135.7 508.2
Unemployed 84.9 50.2 135.1
Studying or Inactive 125.7 308.3 434.1
Grand total 784.2 629.8 1414.0
Labour participation rate 84.0% 51.0% 69.3%
Wage employment rate (all sectors) 64.9% 50.0% 60.2%
Unemployment rate 12.9% 15.6% 13.8%
Informal (upper & lower tier) sector share employees 45.7% 53.3% 48.0%
self-employed 33.3% 40.8% 36.2%
all employed 42.7% 49.1% 44.7%
Lower tier informal sector share employees 24.2% 37.0% 28.0%
self-employed 33.3% 40.8% 36.2%
all employed 26.5% 38.3% 30.3%
Self-employment share formal sector 22.5% 32.2% 25.2%
lower tier informal sector 31.2% 35.7% 33.0%
all sectors 24.8% 33.5% 27.6%
Table 9: Small-scale enterprises employment in Nairobi by sex of the employer (population
aged 15-64) by retro-projection of the Nairobi Urban Integration Project (NUrIP) on
the 1999 Census
In ‘000 sex of the employer: Male Female Total
Formal sector small-scale enterprises employment 238.6 116.7 355.3
Self-employed 94.8 53.9 148.6
Employees *143.8 *62.8 *206.6
Average number of employees per enterprise 1.52 1.17 1.39
Informal sector small-scale enterprises
employment 61.7 43.5 105.2
Self-employed 47.4 37.1 84.5
Employees *14.4 *6.4 *20.8
Average number of employees per enterprise 0.30 0.17 0.25
All sectors small-scale enterprises employment 300.3 160.2 460.5
Self-employed 142.1 91.0 233.1
Employees *158.1 *69.2 *227.4
Average number of employees per enterprise 1.11 0.76 0.98
Employed all sectors, of which: 573.5 (100.0%) 271.3 (100.0%) 844.9 (100.0%)
Self-employed 142.1 (24.8%) 91.0 (33.5%) 233.1 (27.6%)
Employees of small-scale enterprises *158.1 (27.6%) *69.2 (25.5%) *227.4 (26.9%)
Employees of medium to large scale enterprises 273.2 (47.6%) 111.1 (40.9%) 384.3 (45.5%)
Total employed in formal sector enterprises (all
sizes) 511.8 (89.2%) 227.8 (84.0%) 739.7 (87.5%)
16
Total employed in informal sector small-scale
enterprises 61.7 (10.8% 43.5 (16.0%) 105.2 (12.5%)
All sectors employees 431.4 (100.0%) 180.3 (100.0%) 611.7 (100.0%)
Formal sector employees 234.1 (54.3%) 84.2 (46.7%) 318.3 (52.0%)
Upper tier informal sector employees 92.8 (21.5%) 29.4 (16.3%) 122.2 (20.0%)
Lower tier informal sector employees:
in formal enterprises (small or large scale) 90.1 (20.9%) 60.4 (33.5%) 150.5 (24.6%)
in informal enterprises (small scale) *14.4 ( 3.3%) *6.4 ( 3.5%) *20.8 ( 3.4%)
Note: * The number of employees in small-scale enterprises is deducted from the average number of employees for the self-employed in
each sector. The formal sector small-scale enterprises are defined as enterprises of self-employed using formal accountancy. Their
employees may be formally or informally contracted. Employees in informal sector enterprises are considered all informally
contracted.
17. Table 9 is an attempt to evaluate for 1999 the number of employees by the sector and scale of their
enterprise. Unfortunately, the NUrIP data were not sufficiently robust to estimate the same for 1989.
Nevertheless, Table 9 gives an interesting indication on the employment potential of the informal
sector. Estimations of the number of small-scale enterprises, formal or informal, are very close in the
NUrIP (233 100, Table 9) and the ILS (232 600, quoted from the ILS report). The percentage of self-employed
persons holding lower tier informal enterprises is lower in Nairobi (36.2%,
i.e. 84 500 according to the NUrIP) than it is for all urban areas (58.7% according to the ILS)2. Using
the retrospective data from the NUrIP, we were able to estimate the number of employees for each
category of small-scale enterprises using the average number of employees for each self-employed
respondent. Formal small-scale enterprises employ on average 1.39 employees compared to only
0.25 employees for informal small-scale enterprises, where the activity generally reduces to self-employment.
On average, small-scale enterprises of all sectors employ 0.98 employees on average
according to the NUrIP. This estimate compares to a rate of 0.55 employees on average per small-scale
enterprise as measured in the ILS for all urban areas3 and to 0.47 for Nairobi only. The ILS
estimated 108 400 employees in small-scale enterprises, as against 227 400 in the NUrIP. It is difficult
without further detail of the methodology used in the ILS, to explain the discrepancy with NUrIP
estimations.
The employers (or self-employed) in Africa usually form a significant part of the informal sector
employment than they do in the formal sector. It does not seem to be the case in Nairobi. Contrary to
expectations, the new small-scale firms that were supposed to sprout in the informal sector as a result
of the economic crisis are actually mainly found in the formal sector: 64% of the self-employed in
Nairobi hold a formal business (using written accountancy) and they employ 10 times more than the
self-employed in the informal sector.
What is remarkable is that a great majority (150 500, i.e. 87.9%) of the 171 200 employees of the
lower tier of the informal sector are actually employed by formal or upper tier informal enterprises. It
is not possible to know which employees of the lower tier informal sector are employed by small-scale
or by medium to large-scale enterprises4. However, it would appear that only a minority (21 thousand
out of 150 thousand, i.e. 12.1%) of the lower tier informal sector employees is employed by lower tier
informal enterprises (Table 9). They represent 3.4% of employees from all sectors.
Lower tier informal sector employees represented about 28.0% of all the 611 700 wage employees in
1999. It will strike the reader that this proportion is much higher for female employees (37.0%) than
for male employees (24.2%), showing the high gender inequalities on the Nairobi labour market. Not
only do women have a lower labour participation rate (51% compared to 84% for males) and higher
unemployment rate (15.6% against 12.9%) but upon employment a good proportion of the female
workers are subjected to lesser social protection through informal contracts.
These evaluations might be subject to the imprecision attached to limited, retrospective data, but they
are certainly sufficient to prove that lower tier informal enterprises are not the only enterprises to
generate informal sector employment. Although the NUrIP estimate for small-scale enterprise
employees is twice as much as previous estimates by the ILS, we found only a tiny proportion of them
to be employed in lower tier informal sector. Most of the employees of the so-called informal sector
are actually informally contracted by formal large, medium or small scale enterprises. The informal
character of the employment contracts as measured through household surveys should not be confused
with the sector (informal or formal) of the enterprises.
Our contention is that formal enterprises not only limited access to formal employment but also
‘informalised’ part of their work force, to the extent that many employees in the formal sector
enterprises are now informally contracted. The importance of informally contracted employees in
2 The ILS figures for urban areas as a whole show that 41.3% of the operators registered their activity either to the registrar of companies
(4.4%), the Provincial or Local Authorities (31.1%) or to the Central Government (5.8%).
3 According to the ILS, there were 1 217 874 persons employed by 787 992 small-scale enterprises in urban areas.
4 In the NUrIP, the respondents working as employees were not asked about the size or the type of accountancy of the enterprise they
worked for. These questions were tested in other urban integration surveys elsewhere in Africa but results proved unreliable as many
employees did not know enough about their enterprise, especially retrospectively for early periods of their life.
17
18. formal enterprises underlines, somehow negatively, the importance of the formal sector. It is without
doubt the driving force of Nairobi’s labour market. The growing importance of the lower tier informal
sector should not conceal the structural dependency of the labour market to the formal economy. The
importance of employees informally contracted by formal enterprises also underlines the inadequacy
of public policies regarding informal sector enterprises. They were not successful at encouraging
informal enterprises to multiply and grow, nor were they successful at encouraging them to employ
more people. On the contrary, formal enterprises still employ a great majority of the work force in
Nairobi, but more and more on an informal basis.
3. MIGRATION, UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFORMAL SECTOR GROWTH
One common hypothesis about urban labour markets in Africa is that mass migration to the city
contributes highly to unemployment growth, and also to informal sector growth. To verify this
hypothesis we will analyse the first activity of migrants (for the definition of migrants, see section
above on the Retrospective data and migration bias) just after their first migration to Nairobi, and also
compare their activity before and after their first migration, using the retrospective data from NUrIP.
For the sake of comparison between generations, we will do so by controlling for age, i.e. by selecting
respondents who migrated between 15 and 30 years old.
The differential opportunities between Nairobi and the rest of the country could create an incentive to
migrate if opportunities were better in Nairobi. An urban growth could therefore result from this
differential even if unemployment rose in Nairobi. To verify this, we compare the activity before and
after the first migration as for unemployment (Table 10) and formal sector share of employment
(Table 11).
What consequence has the migration had on the activity profile of migrants? Migration has the effect
of decreasing the unemployment rate (Table 10). In the older generation of males the proportion
decreased by 28%, but as the unemployment rate increased, the benefit of migration is less for the
intermediate (–21%) and the youngest generation (–24%). For the female migrants, on the contrary,
the gain is less in the older generation (–16% comparable to –28% for males) than in the intermediate
(-22%) and younger ones (-21%). However, active female migrants face less unemployment than their
male counterparts either before or after migration, but fewer females are active so the impact of
unemployment is higher among males.
Of course the above figures are biased toward the successful migrants. Those unemployed migrants
who could not find a job in Nairobi probably return to where they belong or migrated elsewhere. Our
result should therefore be interpreted with caution. The reduction impact of migration on the
unemployment rate is overestimated due to selection bias. However, the results certainly indicate that
migration did not increase unemployment among migrants, although we cannot conclude that the
unemployment differential in and outside Nairobi is great enough to alone explain the migration of
male and female labour. Even more important, the advantage of migration did not change much from
one generation to the other even though the unemployment rate increased substantially from the 1970s
to the 1990s.
In addition to the above, the unemployment rate is no higher than for non-migrants. In Table 10 and
11, we compare the situation of migrants and non-migrants at the age of 25 years old. Table 10 shows
that the unemployment rates are remarkably similar for male migrants and non-migrants, except in the
younger generation where it seems higher for non-migrants. For females the unemployment rates are
constantly higher for the Nairobians.
18
19. Table 10: Unemployment rate before and after migration (migrants between 15 and 30) as
compared to non-migrants by generation and sex
Males Females
Generation: 45-54 35-44 25-34 45-54 35-44 25-34
19
Unemployment rate:
Before migration 45.6% 52.2% 60.7% 43.7% 42.7% 54.9%
N= 90 90 117 80 82 91
After migration 33.0% 41.4% 45.8% 36.8% 33.3% 43.5%
N= 97 102 117 85 79 88
Variation of unemployment rate -28% -21% -24% -16% -22% -21%
Unemployment rate (migrants):
At 25 years old 7.7% 8.3% 12.6% 3.8% 8.5% 13.5%
N= 91 97 127 107 94 96
Unemployment rate (non migrants):
At 25 years old 7.7% 8.9% 16.3% 5.7% 12.5% 14.6%
N= 26 45 43 35 48 48
Table 11: Formal sector share among occupied migrants before and after migration (migrants
between 15 and 30) as compared to non-migrants by generation and sex
Males Females
Generation: 45-54 35-44 25-34 45-54 35-44 25-34
Formal sector share (migrants):
Before migration 26.5% 25.6% 26.1% 37.8% 36.2% 46.3%
N= 49 43 46 45 47 41
After migration 43.1% 35.0% 25.4% 48.1% 44.2% 30.6%
N= 65 60 63 54 52 49
Variation of formal sector share +62% +37% –3% +27% +22% –34%
Formal sector share (migrants):
At 25 years old 70.7% 59.5% 50.0% 75.0% 67.9% 53.7%
N= 82 84 104 100 84 82
Formal sector share (non migrants):
At 25 years old 58.3% 61.5% 50.0% 59.4% 77.5% 68.4%
N= 24 39 32 32 40 38
Despite higher unemployment rates just after migration in the city, it is possible that migrants are
driven by better employment prospects for at least two reasons. First they can get quality employment
(in the so-called formal sector), and second, they can get them quickly. As for the quality of
employment, Table 11 shows that whereas the same proportion (about 26%) of occupied male
migrants were engaged in formal employment before migration, a larger proportion of the same
migrants found themselves in formal employment after migration in the older (+62%) and
intermediate (+37%) generation, contrary to the youngest generation (-3%). Female migrants were less
occupied than their male counterparts, but more so in the formal sector whether before migration (36%
to 46% depending on the generation) or after migration (31% to 48%). However the proportion
increased after migration by only 27% in the older generation and by 22% in the intermediate, while it
decreased—more dramatically than for males—by 34% in the youngest generation of female migrants.
Similar to the unemployment rates, the repartition by sector might be biased towards the successful
migrants, the others having been rejected from the Nairobi labour market. The size of the sample is
also small. However, it can be tentatively said that migrants to Nairobi were attracted mainly by better
employment prospects, but that the advantage brought by migration seems to disappear or even to
reverse in the youngest generation.
Table 11 shows another interesting feature: regarding employment status at 25 years old (before which
most migration took place) the migrants do not seem particularly more involved in informal activities
than non-migrants. Actually, the migrants of the older generation whether male or female are more
involved in formal activities at 25 years of age than the Nairobians. In the intermediate and younger
generations of males, the proportion involved in formal activities is remarkably similar for migrants
and non-migrants, and is declining for both in the younger generation. It is only for females that the
20. formal sector share is higher for Nairobians, but the decline in the younger generation is also observed
for both migrants and non-migrants.
As mentioned earlier, not only might migrants get better jobs than they had before migration but they
might get them soon after they migrate. It is not possible using available data to determine the speed at
which new entrants in the labour market find a job for different parts of the country. However, the
NUrIP allows such an analysis for migrants (Table 12) and non-migrants (Table 13) in Nairobi.
Table 12: Time to first employment in Nairobi for the city-born or migrants before 15 years old
20
(Nairobians) by generation and sex
Males Females
Age group: 45-54 35-44 25-34 45-54 35-44 25-34
Proportion having a first employment
before: 20 years old 46% 39% 42% 39% 40% 23%
25 years old 89% 84% 75% 79% 69% 62%
30 years old 95% 94% 82% 85% 84% 73%
Age at first employment in Nairobi:
First quartile 18.8 18.5 18.7 19.0 18.2 20.1
Second quartile (median) 20.1 20.7 21.4 21.0 22.2 22.8
Third quartile 20.9 23.6 24.4 24.8 27.0 32.7
Number of person-years at risk 174 323 342 400 504 629
Table 13: Time to first employment in Nairobi for the migrants by generation and sex
Males Females
Age group 45-54 35-44 25-34 45-54 35-44 25-34
Proportion of migrants non-employed
just after migration: 54% 63% 60% 74% 73% 78%
Proportion of non-employed migrants
who got employed:
5 years after migration 70% 73% 65% 48% 60% 48%
10 years after migration 91% 91% 82% 71% 67% 63%
Number of years before first employment
in Nairobi:
First quartile 0.3 0.4 1.4 2.3 1.3 2.1
Second quartile (median) 3.0 2.7 3.1 5.3 3.3 5.3
Third quartile 6.6 5.7 6.6 12.9 16.7 n.s.
Age at first employment in Nairobi:
First quartile 16.7 17.9 16.4 17.1 18.1 15.6
Second quartile (median) 19.2 19.3 20.0 20.9 20.6 20.6
Third quartile 22.2 22.7 22.9 24.4 24.2 25.9
Number of person-years at risk 352 336 356 1437 854 786
The median age at first remunerated employment (excluding apprenticeship) is reported in Table 12
for the Nairobians. The log-rank test of equality of the transition functions shows a significant
difference only between the younger generation and the two older generations of males (at the 10%
level) and females (at the 5% level). However small the sample, we can see that there has been a delay
in entering the labour market for the younger generation of Nairobian males. About 95% of the two
older generations of men were employed by the age of 30 years, whereas there were 82% in the
youngest. Similarly, there was also a decrease in the intensity of entry into the labour market of
women, from 85% employed by 30 years old in the two older generations to 73% in the youngest
generation.
Table 13 shows the time taken by migrants to find their first employment from the moment of their
first migration into Nairobi. The migrants who were employed upon arrival in Nairobi are excluded
from analysis because they may have been offered an employment while still outside Nairobi or
simply by appointment from their employer. In other words, they are considered as being at risk
outside Nairobi, their migration being a consequence of the new employment (or the new location of
the same employment). In our analyses of access to employment in Nairobi, we are interested in the
conditions prevailing for migrants who migrated to seek an employment in Nairobi: they migrated
prior to seeking new employment. The proportion of migrants who did not have a job in the first
21. six months of their first stay in Nairobi varies from 54 to 63% for males and from 73 to 78% for
females, depending on the generation.
From Table 13 we can see little change in the pattern for males. Half of them were employed after
staying about 3 years in Nairobi. However, the proportion still not employed after 10 years in Nairobi
doubled between the two older generations (9%) and the youngest generation (18%). The median age
at first employment tend to increase slightly from the older generation (19.2 years old) to the youngest
(20 years old).
The median number of years before first employment decreased for the intermediate generation of
women but this did not convert into a significant reduction of median age at first employment. There is
some evidence of a slight delay in access to first employment in the younger generation (37% were
still without employment after 10 years in Nairobi) compared to the intermediate (33%) and the older
(29%).
From the above evidence, and even after taking the selection bias into account, we cannot conclude
that migrants are worse off than non-migrants. On the contrary, they have quicker access to better jobs
than non-migrants. Therefore the recent rise in unemployment and in the share of the informal sector
in Nairobi has little to do with migration and can mainly be attributed to a bad economic environment
in the city.
CONCLUSION
The main historical feature of the Nairobi labour market lies in the importance of the formal sector.
Certainly the formal employment share has decreased as a consequence of the economic crisis and of a
shrinking public sector. However 55% of the employed population was still in the formal sector in
1999 (60% in wage employment), a figure to be compared with about 60% in 1989 (73% for wage
employment). If we also consider the employees informally contracted by formal enterprises, the
proportion of employment dependent on the formal sector enterprises is higher. In 1999, only 12.5%
of the entire employed population were actually working in a small-scale, lower tier informal
enterprise. This means that 7 out of 8 job positions in Nairobi depend on the formal sector, through
either formal or informal contracts. Nairobi remains one of the most formal urban labour markets in
Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa. This has structural implications as it means that most of
the urban income depends on the formal sector.
Although the share of formal contract employment is decreasing—as a consequence of delayed entry
into the job market, unemployment, female inactivity, and informal contracts by formal enterprises—
the formal sector still is the norm on the labour market towards which most youth cast their hope.
Despite the economic crisis, there has been no direct transfer of employment from the formal to the
informal enterprises, but rather there has been an ‘informalisation’ of the formal sector, as more
formal enterprises are now informally contracting employees. Mazumdar and Mazaheri (2002) already
noted in the first half of the 1990s that Kenya’s manufacturing sector had the largest share of non-regular
workers (30% on average), before Zimbabwe (22%) compared to other African countries like
Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia (10% to 14%). Precariousness of employment
is therefore not completely new to Kenya, but it has certainly increased and taken various forms (from
short-term contract to no contract at all) over the 1980s and 1990s. If the observed trends should be
related to any economic policies aimed at encouraging the informal sector, then it should be concluded
that these policies failed. Instead of encouraging the development of informal enterprises, they rather
led more formal enterprises to use informal contracts. Whether this is a deliberate strategy to avoid
taxation on labour remains to be seen, but it certainly had the effect of lowering the operating costs of
these enterprises at the expense of social and legal protection of employees. The growing importance
of informally contracted employees in formal enterprises should also set off a reflection on the tax
load, especially on small-scale enterprises. Perhaps the taxation system should be adapted to the size
of the enterprise so that employees do not shoulder most of the burden of the economic downturn.
The economic crisis in Nairobi did not benefit the development of the informal sector as much as it
impeded the development of the formal sector. The formal economy declined in the last two decades,
21
22. but it was not so much as to benefit the informal enterprises. The retrenchment programme has had
marginal effects so far on the labour market structure as it mainly concerned older employees who
form a smaller part of the labour force. The economic downturn in the formal sector is more
detrimental to the entry into the labour market for the younger generation. Additionally the economic
crisis that started in the mid-1980s took its toll mainly on women in the 1990s: it resulted in the later
entry of women in the labour market and lower overall female labour participation. Most enterprises
not only transferred the burden of the economic crisis onto the employees by offering them more
informal contracts, but they also tended to privilege men rather than women in the process. It should
therefore be stressed that the Nairobi labour market became more discriminative against women in the
1990s, and their opportunity to enter and to remain in the labour market reduced considerably.
Did migration contribute to the evolution of the Nairobi labour market? Migrants have never been
particularly engaged in the informal sector nor have they been more unemployed than migrants. The
timing and intensity of entry into the labour market are not significantly different for Nairobians and
for migrants, and are even to the advantage of the latter. Therefore it should be concluded that
although migrants form more than three quarters of the active population in Nairobi, migration per se
has not had a specific impact on the labour market structure and evolution. It is actually the opposite
that is true—migration patterns adapted over the 1990s as Nairobi became less attractive to active
migrants.
At first glance, the fall in employment opportunities did not result in a slow-down in the capital city’s
growth. Over the 1970s to the 1990s, Nairobi grew at a relatively constant rate, varying only from
4.7% to 4.9% a year. However the growth rate of the population in active age started to decline in the
1990s. Whereas it was above total population growth rate (5.1% a year in the 1970s and 5.2% in the
1980s) it went below in the 1990s (4.7%). This trend is clearer for men than for women. The growth
rate of the population in active age remained high for women and even slightly increased from the
1970s (5.7%) to the 1990s (6.0%), but for men, it went down from 4.8% in the 1970s and the 1980s to
3.9% in the 1990s. As the major labour market in Kenya, Nairobi is still attractive to many migrants—
especially because other urban centres do not offer much of an alternative—but much less than in the
past. This could be an indication that unemployment and lack of opportunity in the formal sector
served as a deterrent to male migrants, especially in the 1990s when the economic crisis seems to have
struck hard on the workers. Female migration is less sensitive to the labour market situation as females
also participate less to economic activities. It should also be noted that the combination of higher
unemployment, lower female participation rate and reduction of migration of males in active ages
resulted in a 20% increase dependency ratio (non occupied population over occupied population) from
1.22 in 1989 to 1.47 in 1999. In other words, the occupied population increased by 3.6% a year as
against 5.5% a year for the unoccupied population. Fewer revenues to share with more people
translated into increased poverty in Nairobi: according to the Welfare Monitoring Surveys (WMS)
absolute poverty (measured by the percentage of the population living with less than 1 US$ a day)
increased from 26.5% to 50.2% between 1992 and 1997 as compared to 44.8% to 52.3% for the whole
country (Republic of Kenya, 2000). There is much less difference in poverty between rural and urban
areas than before and that certainly impeded the contribution of migration to urban growth.
In- and out-flows of migrants changed due to the declining rate of return of the migrating experience.
This has policy implication. Controlling migration flows by further reducing the migration to Nairobi,
assuming that it would be possible, will certainly not help in reducing residents’ unemployment, as the
two phenomena appear unrelated. Stimulating the informal economy would probably not do much to
absorb the excess work force either, since it has shown a limited capacity to do so in the past. The
remedy to the tension on the labour market lies more in investment in the formal sector, which forms
the true engine of Nairobi’s economy.
22
23. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agwanda, A.O. and Bocquier P. (2003), "To What Extent did Economic Downturn in Kenya influence
Entry into Parenthood in Nairobi City?" Presented at African Population Conference,
8-12 December, Tunis, Tunisia.
Agwanda A.O., Bocquier P., Khasakhala A., Nyandega I., and Owuor S.. 2004a. Biography of three
generations of Nairobi residents - Thirty years of social urban history. Nairobi.
Agwanda A.O., Bocquier P., Khasakhala A. and Owuor S. (2004b), "The Effect of Economic Crisis on
Youth Precariousness in Nairobi - An Analysis of Itinerary to Adulthood of Three Generations of
Men and Women." DIAL Working Papers / Documents de Travail 2004-04. Paris, 32 p.
Antoine P. and Bocquier P. (1997), "L'enquête insertion urbaine à Dakar." Presented at L'apport des
collectes biographiques pour la connaissance de la mobilité, 12-13 Juin, Paris.
Antoine P., Bocquier P., Razafindratsima N., and Roubaud F. (2000), Biographies de trois générations
dans l'agglomération d'Antananarivo - Premiers résultats de l'enquête BIOMAD-98. Paris:
CEPED.
Antoine, P., Bry X. and Diouf P.D. (1987), "La fiche AGEVEN : un outil pour la collecte des données
rétrospectives." Techniques d'enquête 13(2) :173-181.
Antoine P., Ouédraogo D. and Piché V. (1998), "Trois générations de citadins au Sahel - Trente ans
d'histoire sociale à Dakar et à Bamako." in, A. Bourdin and J. Rémy (eds.) Collection Villes et
Entreprises Paris, L'Harmattan, 281 p.
Becker C.M., Hamer A.M. and Morrison A.R. (1994), Beyond Urban Bias in Africa: urbanization in
an era of structural adjustment. Portsmouth - London: Heineman - James Currey Ltd.
Collier P. and Lal D. (1986), Labor and Poverty in Kenya 1900-1980, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dickens W.T. and Lang K. (1992), "Labor Market Segmentation Theory: Reconsidering the
23
Evidence." NBER Working Paper (4087).
Fallon P.R. (1985), "The Labor Market in Kenya: Recent Evidence." Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Feige E.L. (1990) "Defining and Estimating Underground and Informal Economies: The New
Institutional Economics Approach." World Development 18(7):989-1002.
Hart K. (1973), "Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana." Journal of
Modern African Studies (11):61-89.
ILO (1972), Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in
Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
Jamal V. and Weeks J. (1993), Africa Misunderstood or Whatever Happened to the Rural-Urban
Gap? Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire & London: The MacMillan Press Ltd.
Kabubo-Mariara J. and Kiriti T.W. (2002), "Structural adjustment, poverty and economic growth: An
analysis for Kenya." African Economic Research Consortium Research Paper (124).
Macharia K. (1997), Social and Political Dynamics of the Informal Economy in African Cities: Harare
and Nairobi. Lanham, Maryland - New York - Oxford: University Press of America.
Mazumdar D. and Mazaheri A. (2002), Wages and Employment in Africa. Aldershot: Ashgate.
24. Mead D.C. and Morrisson C. (1996), "The Informal Sector Elephant" World Development
24
24(10):1611-1619.
O'Brien F.S. and Ryan T.C.I. (2001), "Kenya" in D. Dollar and T. Holmgren (eds.) Aid and Reform in
Africa: Lessons from Ten Case Studies, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
Portes, A. and Haller W. (2002), "The Informal Economy" Center for Migration and Development -
Working Paper Series (03-05).
Republic of Kenya (1970-2002), Economic Survey. Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics.
Republic of Kenya (2000), "Second Report on Poverty in Kenya - Volume I: Incidence and Depth of
Poverty" Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics. Ministry of Planning and National Development.
Republic of Kenya (2002a), "The Labour Force Participation in Kenya" Pp. 208-220 in Economic
Survey 2002, C.B.o. Statistics (ed.) Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics.
Republic of Kenya (2002b), "Report of 1998/99 Labour Force Survey." C.B.o. Statistics (ed.),
Nairobi: Central Bureau of Statistics. 108 p.
Robertson C.C. (2002), "The Informal Sector in Nairobi: a Crime?" Presented at Crime in Eastern
Africa: Past and Present Perspectives, 8-11 July, Naivasha.
Saint-Paul G. (1996), Dual Labor Markets: A Macroeconomic Perspective. Cambridge,
Massachusetts - London, England: The MIT Press.
Stiglitz J.E. (1974), "Alternative theories of wage determination and unemployment in LDC's: the
labor turnover model", Quarterly Journal of Economics 88(4):194-227.
Todaro M. (1976), Internal Migration in Developing Countries : A Review of Theory, Evidence,
Methodology and Research Priorities, Geneva: ILO.
Todaro M.P. (1997), "Urbanization, Unemployment and Migration in Africa: Theory and Policy",
Population Council Working Papers (104) 1-50.
World Bank (1995), "Labor and the Growth Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: Regional Perspectives on
World Development Report", The World Bank, Washington D.C., 40 p.