Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Aside from gender, it is worth noting the
importance of age in informal sector divisions.
Child workers in developing countries are almost
always employed under informal arrangements
and are found in the lowest echelons of economic
activity. As Green (1998: p. 35) argues with
reference to Latin America: 'In this brave new
world of “flexible working patterns”, children are
often perfect employees—the cheapest to hire, the
easiest to fire and the least likely to protest.'
informal sector to continue expanding in the
wake of changes in the formal economy? This
question arises out of recognition that 'the
informal sector enjoys a largely symbiotic
relationship with the modern manufacturing and
service sectors' (Becker and Morrison 1997: p. 93).
Detailed empirical studies have revealed that the
informal sector is linked to the formal sector in a
wide range of subordinate ways, that enterprises
with the fewest direct links with the formal sector
are likely to be the least dynamic economically,
and that, over time, the informal sector is
increasingly likely to lose its independent basis for
subsistence (see Roberts 1995: pp. 120
et seq
. for
discussion and references).
Taking into consideration the argument that 'the
informal sector in Latin America and elsewhere is
LINKAGES BETWEEN THE FORMAL
AND INFORMAL SECTORS
Having noted an increase in informal employment
in recent years, to what extent is it possible for the
Box 38.1
Aspects of the gender division of labour in a Nairobi shanty town
Kenya is one of the most rapidly urbanising countries in
the developing world, with one-quarter of its population
currently residing in towns and cities. Despite reasonably
positive (if variable) rates of economic growth in the post-
war period, unemployment and underemployment in the
urban economy have risen steadily since the early 1970s.
This has forced many of the urban poor to resort to
informal modes of shelter provision and to informal
income-generating activities. In Mathare Valley, a shanty
town that houses around one-fifth of Nairobi's population,
around 80 per cent of the population make their living
from the informal sector. These occupations fall into five
main groups: (1) the entertainment industry; (2) the
production of self-built housing for sale or rent; (3) shops;
(4) other small businesses, and (5) hawking (petty
commerce/ambulant vending).
Although gender divisions are found within and among
these sub-sectors, men tend to dominate the upper tiers
of the informal economy. Common male activities include
running a
duka
(small shop), tailoring and taxi owning.
Women, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly
concentrated in activities related to their domestic roles,
such as domestic service, sex work and/or the sale of
small quantities of basic subsistence items such as
vegetables,
kimera
(millet flour), and charcoal. The
gendered hierarchy of informal employment is partly due
to the fact that men's choice of economic activity is wider
than women's because they receive more schooling, more
instruction in technical subjects and/or have greater
opportunity to acquire skills on the fringes of the modern
industrialised economy. Differentials also arise from men's
greater ability to invest in their businesses. Higher earnings
and investment capacity stem not only from the fact that
men do not have to divide their time between employment
and reproductive labour but also because they can usually
count on additional income from their wives. Women
workers, on the other hand, are often unpartnered and, as
such, solely reponsible for child rearing and household
expenditures. Men's greater levels of investment tend to
lead to greater returns, thereby giving rise to a widening of
male-female income disparities over time. In addition, as
pressures on the Nairobi labour market have increased,
there has been a tendency for men to colonise niches of
the informal sector that have traditionally employed women.
A classic example of this is the so-called 'entertainment'
industry, which revolves around the sale of alcohol,
companionship and sex. As little as twenty-five years ago,
the entertainment sector was virtually the exclusive domain
of women. Recently, however, some of the more profitable
parts of the industry have moved into male hands.
Demand for recreational services and entertainment
in Nairobi over the years has been fuelled by the
recruitment of migrant male labour in the police, the army
and the health service. While many women in the past
had a fairly lucrative trade in the illegal brewing of maize
beer
(buzaa),
often sold from backroom bars
(shebeens)
in their own houses, from the 1970s onwards, this
alternative began to dwindle. This was partly because
buzaa
production was taken on by a large multinational
firm (using the brand name 'Chibuku'), and partly because
police raids on illegal brewers in the shanty towns grew in
number and intensity. Men have tended to take over the
running of bars, (a) because they have had more capital
to make wholesale purchases of commercially brewed
Chibuku, and (2) because they have been able to afford to
pay large bribes to the police.
Source:
Nelson 1997.
