Annotation Summary for ‘Formal and Informal Employment Opportunity for Women’ Folder
The articles are basically discussing how women’s engagement varies across formal and informal labour engagement in Ethiopian context. Six of the literatures have a common argument that in Ethiopia, women are overrepresented in the informal sector and underrepresented in the formal sectors. Expansion of the informal sector due to migration, urbanisation, and limited formal job opportunity are noted as a contributing factor for the expansion of informal sectors.
On Research Methodology:
Any scholarly article is expected to describe the research approach, data collection method and data analysis. Coming to the reviewed research work, it is understood that mixed research approaches (Qualitative and Quantitative) are basically used. Regarding sampling method, Multistage Sampling and Random/Purposive sampling method are employed to select study participants by the researcher. Coming to data analysis methods, the authors used SPSS, SAS and explanatory sequential analysis with the Logistic Regression Model were used for data analysis.
On Finding of the Studies:
1st. All the studies have found that in Ethiopia, women hugely engage in the informal sector and are underrepresented in the formal sector.
2nd. Informal sector is labelled as having a positive impact in facilitating women self-employment opportunities and absorbs a huge labour force. This is due to easy to enter the business, demand low capital to invest and out of reach of government-imposed taxes and liabilities.
3rd. All the studies agree that the informal sector is considered as requiring intensive labour and associated with lack of access to marketplace, financial service, and security challenges.
4th. Almost all the study agrees that women in the informal sector face financial service challenges. The first challenge is access to credit services which is inhibited by different factors including lack of collateral to secure the debt, discrimination against during group credit and limitation of formal financial services. The second challenge in relation to this, after women secure the credit service, the high interest rate affected their capacity to pay and accrue the intended benefit from it. Thirdly, as the credit service is not supported with adequate training on how to effectively manage it, most of the women use it for extravagant and household consumption purposes.
5th. The studies indicated the correlation between family size and women’s economic empowerment. The study pointed out that as family size increases women’s opportunity to engage in labour activity decreases, this is correlated with household burden and time poverty. Education is also mentioned as having a strong correlation with women’s economic empowerment. As the education level increases, women’s opportunity to get employment increases.
Common Challenges and Recommendation:
- Lack of conducive working place, lack of access to financial service/credit, gender bias and discrimination, social norms, lack of skill and training, and generally lack of support from government.
Recommendations:
- Capacity building training
- Easy financial access for women
- Focusing on family planning program
- Reconsidering educational programs