Resource information
The population of Sub-Saharan Africa
stood at 854 million in 2010. Annual population growth
averaged 2.5 percent, with a relatively high sustained
fertility rate, fostered by the fact that two-thirds of the
population is under 25. The region has the highest
proportion of poor people in the world, with 47.5 percent of
its population living on less than $1.25 a day, as measured
in terms of purchasing power parity in 2008. It is also the
only region in which the number of poor is still rising.
This book contributes to knowledge on the functioning of
urban labor markets in Sub-Saharan Africa by investigating
following questions: which individuals lack access to
employment or are employed beneath their capacities; does
education improve working conditions?; what opportunities
does the labor market offer to climb the social ladder?; is
the lack of good-quality jobs for adults and the poverty it
implies one of the reasons for the prevalence of child
labor?; do women and ethnic minorities have the same access
to the labor market as everyone else?; how does the formal
sector live alongside the informal sector?; what role does
migration play in the functioning of labor markets?;and are
there traits common to all urban labor markets in Africa, or
is each country different? This book attempts to answer
these questions by studying 11 cities in 10 countries (table
O.1). Comparative studies are often based on disparate
measurement instruments, which risk marring the validity of
the findings. This study is based on a set of perfectly
comparable surveys. The study also covers a number of topics
(migration, child labor, job satisfaction, discrimination,
and work after retirement) in addition to the topics covered
by Lachaud (unemployment, access to employment and mobility,
segmentation, labor supply, and poverty). This book is
divided in five parts. The first is comparative analysis of
urban labor markets in Sub-Saharan Africa; second is job
quality and labor market conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa;
third is dimensions of labor market inequalities; fourth is
the key coping mechanisms and private responses; and fifth
is moving forward.
