Gender and Informal Employment in Zimbabwe

1
Gender and Informal Employment in Zimbabwe

• Lindiwe Ngwenya, CSO Zimbabwe
• Malte Luebker, International Labour Office (ILO)
• Global Forum on Gender Statistics
• 26-28 January 2009 in Accra, Ghana

2
Outline of the presentation

• Limits of traditional headline labour market
  statistics
• Employment in the informal sector and informal
  employment
• Results from Zimbabwes 2004 Labour Force Survey
• Changes to the 2009 Labour Force Survey
• Gender sensitization, training and analysis of
  the 2009 LFS
• Summary Generating labour market statistics that
  are relevant for gender analysis

3
Limits of traditional headline statistics

• Unemployment rate alone can be misleading
• Suggests improvement in LM situation sine early
  1990s, but ignores e.g. changes in type of jobs
  and returns to work.
• Suggests gender equality in LM, but conceals e.g.
  differences in access to formal employment, type
  of economic activity, returns to work, non-SNA
  work and working time.

4
Employment in the informal sector and informal
employment

• Informal sector (enterprise-based concept)
• Defined by ICLS (1993) as private unincorporated
  enterprises, optional limitation to (a)
  non-agricultural activities and (b) below size
  threshold (e.g. less than 10 employees).
• Informal employment (job-based concept)
• ICLS (2003) definition builds on informal sector
  concept and status in employment (ICSE-1993).

x informal employment o formal employment
5
Informal employment in the 2004 LFS

• Informal employment is dominant source of
  employment.
• Concept is broader than informal sector.
• Also captures informal employment in the formal
  sector and informal employment in households.

6
Differences in access to formal employment

• Distribution of total employment suggests gender
  equality, but
• Almost three quarters of formal sector jobs are
  held by men.
• Majority of informal sector jobs are held by
  women.
• Concept is useful to reveal gender differences.

7
Differences in branch of economic activity and
returns to work

• 2004 LFS shows informal employment is
  concentrated in agriculture (male 75.7, female
  79.5 ).
• Non-agricultural activities are often
  (incorrectly) coded as Personal services n.e.c.
  (ISIC Rev. 2 code 9599).
• Small-scale pilot survey in Glen View, Harare,
  shows
• Women are concentrated activities with low
  barriers to entry and low returns (low-end street
  vending, apparel, etc).
• Men are more likely to be in higher-end vending
  (electrical goods, roast mealies, marihuana,
  etc), taxi operators, furniture production and
  repair of motor vehicles household goods.
• Weekly cash earnings of men (mean US33, median
  US9) are higher than of women (mean US11,
  median US4.60).
• Gender differences contribute to high inequality
  (Gini 0.72).

8
Gender differences in working time

• Do men work more hours than women or less?
• Answer depends on concept of work
• More, if only employment is considered (i.e.
  SNA work) .
• Less, if unpaid domestic work is included (i.e.
  non-SNA work).

9
Informal employment in Zimbabwes 2009 LFS

• In 2004 LFS categories permanent employees vs.
  casual/temporary employees were used as proxy
  to distinguish between formal and informal
  employees.
• New section in 2009 LFS on social security to
  capture job-based concept of informality (ICLS
  2003).
• Informal employees are those employees who lack
  at least one of the following
• Employer contributions to pension fund, or
• paid annual leave, or
• paid sick leave.
• Lack of written contract as additional indicator.

10
Inclusion of secondary jobs in 2009 LFS

• Stakeholder workshop in July 2008 recommended
  inclusion of a new section on secondary jobs
• Most formal jobs fail to sustain households, so
  some formal employees also hold an informal job
  to supplement income.
• Helps to properly measure the extent of informal
  employment.
• Data are potentially relevant from a gender
  perspective.

11
Gender sensitization, training and analysis

• Gender sensitization in conjunction with training
  for 2009 LFS field staff to ensure that data
  collection is gender sensitive.
• To be the duty of the Internal Gender Committee
  that is chaired by the departments gender focal
  person, whose mandate is to spearhead gender
  mainstreaming at the CSO.
• Gender and child analysis training for CSO
  Statisticians gender focal points in line
  ministries and parastatals.
• Hope for in-depth analysis of the 2009 LFS to
  shed light on gender and informality in
  Zimbabwe.
• Plans underway to set up a Gender Statistics
  Committee to be chaired by national gender
  machinery.

12
Conclusions Generating labour market statistics
that are relevant for gender analysis

• Sex disaggregation of traditional labour market
  statistics can be insufficient for gender
  analysis
• E.g. unemployment rate suggests gender equality
  where deep inequality between men and women
  exists.
• Informal employment is one useful way to capture
  difference in type of jobs held by men and women.
  
• Zimbabwes example shows that Labour Force
  Surveys are a good tool to collect gender
  relevant statistics.
• In line with ICLS (2003) Checklist of good
  practices for mainstreaming gender in labour
  statistics
• Collect labour statistics on all topics relevant
  to gender, e.g. informal employment, working
  time, non-SNA work.