The effects of informality on socio-spatial inequalities in accessibility to job opportunities: Evidence from Fortaleza, Brazil

Abstract

Unequal access to job opportunities among different socioeconomic groups can be a result from the land-use spatial mismatch problem, especially for peripheralized individuals in low-income groups. This type of spatial pattern is commonly observed in large cities of the Global South, that tend to present a highly concentric distribution of formal jobs. In the last decades, these cities have also experienced growth in informal jobs, which are normally more dispersed across the territory. Therefore, failing to include informal jobs in analyses of access to employment may bias conclusions about the degree of socio-spatial inequalities in accessibility to job opportunities. The main purpose of this paper is, thus, to analyze the effects of informality on these inequalities, using the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, as a representative case study of large cities in the Global South. In addition, the paper makes a methodological contribution by comparing two approaches for estimating the spatial distribution of formal and informal jobs. These two approaches, which need to be interpreted with caution, aim to validate an alternative method based on official socioeconomic data from annually available surveys, to be applied whenever a recent Household Travel Survey (HTS) is not available. On this secondary goal, it was observed that, although the alternative method provided a more concentrated distribution of informal jobs than the HTS method, it can be a valuable tool for analysis in the absence of more specific employment data. Regarding the main findings, the case study's empirical evidence showed that incorporating informal jobs into the analyses lessens the problem of socio-spatial inequalities in job accessibility, reinforcing the need to consider informality especially in large developing cities with similar socio-spatial patterns to Fortaleza.