Urban Informal Sector Research Articles

A Study on Problems of the Street Vendors in Lalbandi Municipality

Due to their lack of education and skills, street vendors are among the most vulnerable and impoverished groups in the urban informal labor market and business sector. They are also unable to obtain permanent positions in the lucrative formal sector. They constantly attempt to use their limited financial means to address the issues affecting their way of life. They serve as the primary distribution routes for a wide range of goods used on a daily basis, including fruits, vegetables, shoes, ready-made clothes, toys, household appliances, stationery, newspapers, and periodicals. A serious dilemma would arise for small-scale businesses that cannot afford to retail their products through pricey formal sector distribution networks, as well as fruit and vegetable growers, if they were to be removed from urban markets. So is found in the case of street vendors of Lalbandi Municipality. Thus, main purpose of conducting this study is to find out the problems faced by street vendors in Lalbandi Municipality. For this, descriptive research design is adopted to explore street vendors’ problems. Out of two hundred seventy-three street vendors of Lalbandi Municipality, thirty street vendors are chosen randomly. The street vendors who sell fruits, vegetables, prepared foods, and household appliances via local vehicles and permanent shelter are the subjects of the current study. The study showed that there is a noteworthy correlation between the issues encountered by the street vendors. The respondents’ general opinion of street sellers and the issues they encountered do not significantly correlate. In nutshell, the street vendors of Lalbandi Municipality have been facing various sorts of problems such as lack of security, price fluctuation, lack of sufficient amount, bribes to the authorities etc. and for that a comprehensive strategy that includes social protection measures, infrastructure and service investments, policy reforms, and initiatives to organize and empower street vendors is needed. Furthermore, the present study is useful to the stakeholders, policy makers and to those who have just started up their small-scale businesses.

Probing the linkages between educational level and occupational choices of women working in urban informal sector of India.

Education is crucial for empowering women in the labour market. However, the choice of occupation may not always necessarily be determined by their level of education. The present study seeks to answer two important questions: (1) Does education help in determining occupational choices of women working in the informal sector? (2) How do factors like number of dependents in the family, woman staying with family, migration status of a woman and the use of networks in the job-search process, affect the occupational choices of women working in the informal sector? The study utilised the data collected from 476 women, working in the urban informal sector of three northern States of India. We have estimated multinomial Probit model to analyse the data. This paper argues that education level cannot be the sole premise for a woman to have a better occupational choice within the informal sector. Other factors play a relatively significant role in determining the choice of occupation by a woman. Working women in the urban informal sector have less autonomy in the choice of their occupation and the education levels alone cannot help in providing access to more hygienic, career enriching and well-paying options to them.

Oral Health Assessment and Smokeless Tobacco Related Habits among the Employees of Public Transport Workers in Western Maharashtra (India): A CrossSectional Study

The oral cavity has been described as “the window of general health” [1]. The oral health adverse effects due to tobacco including common diseases, and rare conditions have been reported in various authors like Reibel J, Dhami B in their article. The city of Western part of Maharashtra, where transport workers like bus conductors and drivers who work prolong hours and constitute an essential part of urban informal sector, where health is undervalued.

EXPLORING THE LINKAGE BETWEEN SKILLS ACQUIRED AND INCOME EARNED ON THE ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF THE WOMEN WORKING IN URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR IN THE CITY OF TAJ: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

EXPLORING THE LINKAGE BETWEEN SKILLS ACQUIRED AND INCOME EARNED ON THE ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF THE WOMEN WORKING IN URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR IN THE CITY OF TAJ: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Utilization of PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PMSVANidhi) and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) by the Urban Informal Sector

Introduction: PMSVAnidhi and PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana are two schemes which were designed to help improve the quality of the lives of the people working in urban informal sectors. The COVID-19 has had a huge impact on everyone’s daily life including the urban informal sector employees, but these schemes when found to have been implemented in a disastrous situation like this, was found to be rather disadvantageous due to some loopholes and lacunae in the designing of the scheme, rendering them useless to its beneficiaries.
 Objectives: This study will evaluate the government-aided programs created to help people in the urban informal sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, and see how well they've been beneficial to the people. It was also intended to find further slits in the designs and its implementation by the authorities, other than already the existing ones.
 Methodology: This study was conducted mainly through secondary literature sources such as review and research paper, electronic journals, etc.
 Findings: In case of PMSVAnidhi, it was found that due to inadequate information on registration forms or a lack of knowledge, registration declined in several states, and public sector banks dispersed maximum loans, with private sector, rural, and cooperative banks contributing the most meager figures. At the same time due to people not obtaining claims and people receiving low rates, PMJJBY enrollments decreased every year. Thus, this study has shown that these schemes aren’t always fool-proof and these loopholes tend to be misused and deleterious in unfavorable times where these schemes can really help its beneficiaries.

Potential demand for National Health Insurance in Zimbabwe: Evidence from selected urban informal sector clusters in Harare.

Zimbabwe's tax-based healthcare financing model has been characterised by perennial financing deficits and widespread application of user fees and has thus been socially exclusive. The country's urban informal sector population is not spared from these challenges. The study explored the potential demand for National Health Insurance (NHI) among respondents from selected urban informal sector clusters of Harare. The following clusters were targeted: Glenview furniture complex, Harare home industries, Mupedzanhamo flea market, Mbare new wholesale market and Mbare retail market. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 388 respondents from the selected clusters, and data on the determinants of Willingness to Join (WTJ) and Willingness to Pay (WTP) was gathered. Respondents were recruited via a multi-stage sampling procedure. In the first stage, the five informal sector clusters were purposely selected. The second stage involved a proportional allocation of respondents by cluster size. Finally, based on the stalls allocated by municipal authorities in each area, respondents were selected using systematic sampling. The sampling interval (k) was determined by dividing the total number of allocated stalls in a cluster (N) by the sample size proportionate to that cluster (n). For each cluster, the first stall (respondent) was randomly chosen, and thereafter, a respondent from every 10th stall was selected and interviewed at their workplace. Contingent valuation was adopted to elicit WTP. Logit models and interval regression were applied for the econometric analyses. A total of 388 respondents participated in the survey. The dominant informal sector activity among the surveyed clusters was the sale of clothing and shoes (39.2%), followed by the sale of agricultural products (27.1%). Concerning employment status, the majority were own-account workers (73.1%). Most of the respondents (84.8%) completed secondary school. On monthly income from informal sector activities, the highest frequency (37.1%) was observed in the Zw$(1000 to <3000) or US$(28.57 to <85.71) category. The mean age of respondents was 36 years. Out of the 388 respondents, 325 (83.8%) were willing to join the proposed NHI scheme. WTJ was influenced by the following factors: health insurance awareness, health insurance perception, membership to a resource-pooling scheme, solidarity with the sick, and household recently experiencing difficulties paying for healthcare. On average, respondents were willing to pay Zw$72.13 (approximately US$2.06) per person per month. The key determinants of WTP were household size, respondent's education level, income, and health insurance perception. Since the majority of respondents from the sampled clusters were willing to join and pay for the contributory NHI scheme, it follows that there is potential to implement the scheme for the urban informal sector workers from the clusters studied. However, some issues require careful consideration. The informal sector workers need to be educated on the concept of risk pooling and the benefits of being members of an NHI scheme. Household size and income are factors that require special attention when deciding on the premiums for the scheme. Moreover, given that price instability hurts financial products such as health insurance, there is a need for ensuring macroeconomic stability.

The urban informal sector as a means of livelihood improvement among youth: Evidence from Hawassa city, Ethiopia

The informal sector constitutes a vital part of developing countries’ economy. It serves as a major source of employment and livelihood for the urban poor. However, despite its multifaceted economic contributions in many developing countries, little is known about its contribution. Hence, this study examines the role of the urban informal sector in improving the livelihoods of the participants in Hawassa city, southern Ethiopia, using primary data. A random sample of 182 informal sector participants was selected from eight kebeles using multi-stage sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model were used to analyze the data. The descriptive analysis results showed that the majority of the participants (67%) perceived that participating in the informal sector has considerably improved their livelihood. The econometric analysis reveals that informal business operators who earn a higher monthly income, those who save their income, stayed longer in the business, have access to credit and own more working capital, and those who get training opportunities are observed to have better livelihood improvement compared to their comparative group. Given the sector’s role in creating employment opportunities for the burgeoning urban labor force and improving livelihood, informal businesses should not be treated as a hostile group with a marginal role in the economy. Thus, along with designing strategies for the formalization of informal enterprises, facilitating access to finance, training programs, improving the business environment, and provision of business development services prepare youth to navigate the informal sector in the study area, in particular, and Ethiopia, in general.

A study of obligatory and contingent expenditure patterns and resultant indebtedness in the urban informal sector

A study of obligatory and contingent expenditure patterns and resultant indebtedness in the urban informal sector

Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Employment and Earning in Urban India during the First Three Months of Pandemic Period: An Analysis with Unit-Level Data of Periodic Labour Force Survey.

Urbanisation has accelerated the pace of development throughout the world. Big cities provide employment and livelihood for workers because of which workers have always migrated from rural areas to cities. However, in India, most of the migrant workers are absorbed in the low-paid and low-skilled jobs in the widespread informal sector. With the outbreak of COVID-19, lockdown was declared suddenly without any notice in India during the last week of March 2019 and most of the urban informal sector workers suddenly lost their jobs, and since they had no protection, they werepushed into poverty. Detailed analysis of such losses is of utmost importance so that perfectly appropriate remedial measures can be taken by the government. Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)report of 2019-20 has analysed the situation of labour market in India for four quarters from July 2019 to June 2020. Therefore, the last quarter of the data will give us the valuable information about the urban labour market during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic period. This study analyses the possible reasons behind decline in monthly earnings and labour market participation of urban people in India during the period of outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, i.e. during the period from April 2020 to June 2020, using the data of fourth quarter from each of the PLFSs of 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 since they have identical seasonal conditions. We have used cross-tabulation method to find out employment and unemployment rates of people inurban areas according to gender and type of employment for the period, from July to June, for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020. We have also tried to find the reasons behind the decline in income of workers during the first three months of the pandemic period, i.e. during the fourth quarter of 2019-20, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017-18 and that of 2018-19 using the Mincerian wage equation. Our empirical results have shown that urban workers in India have lost jobs and suffered from significant decline in income during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic period in almost all types of employment.

Exploring the economic and social impacts of rural-urban migration of youths in Abuja, Nigeria

The primary driver of urban unemployment and population pressure in an emerging nation like Nigeria is the phenomena of rural-urban migration, which is primarily sparked by rural "push" forces and urban "pull" factors. This circumstance also has an impact on the healthy growth of rural and urban communities. Despite this, little research is done to assess how it would affect urban residents' quality of life and rural livelihood. To this end, this study is mainly concerned with exploring the economic and social impacts of rural-urban migration of youths, determine the socio-economic characteristics of rural-urban migrant youths in the study area, assessing the impact of rural-urban migrant youths particularly on economic aspects (employment, cost of living, urban informal sectors) in the study area, investigate the impact of in-migration of youths particularly on social services (education, housing, health and other social facilities) in the study area, and investigate the push and pull factor that influence rural-urban migration in Abuja. Questionnaires were given to 210 rural-urban young people who were chosen at random to learn about the issues. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the participant-provided data. Youth from rural and urban migration move to cities in quest of work and to use city services and amenities. Youth migrants have put pressure on the socioeconomic as well as environmental conditions and characteristics of the study region because of the ongoing outflow of rural migrants seeking out urban basic utilities. Because of the high incidence of rural-to-urban migration, Abuja now faces issues such a housing shortage, unemployment, rising cost of living, limited access to social services, an increase in crime, the growth of urban informal sectors, and other challenges.

Urban Informal Sector: How Much Women Are Struggling for Family Survival

The paper analyses the contribution of informally employed women (for the age group of 16-60 years) to their household budget. The urban informal sector largely absorbs women workers. We examine the determinants of their contribution to their household budgets for the survival of the families. Applying the OLS model to 937 observations, it is found that women as heads of household, women’s education, and ownership of assets by woman have a positive effect on their contribution. The burden of the large family size, household poverty, and loans availed by the household are shared by the informally employed women, as these variables positively affect their contribution. Age of the woman has a non-linear effect on woman’s contribution. The contribution first increases and then decreases by an increase in the age of the woman. Married women and women living in nuclear families contribute more to the household budget. The household per capita income and number of children (5-15 years) in the household have shown a negative effect on the contribution of women to the household budget. The household’s economic vulnerability due to unemployment of husband and lower productivity caused by lower education of husband are also largely shared by the urban informally employed women, i.e., they struggle more for family survival. However, the number of adult males in the household decreases the volume of contribution by women and the burden on women is relaxed.

G. K. Chadha. Employment, Earnings, and Poverty: A Study of Rural India and Indonesia. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 1994. 294 pages. Indian Rupees 295.00.

The rural areas of developing countries are not only underdeveloped in terms of their physical infrastructure but also contain a larger proportion of the poor population as compared to the urban areas reflecting the underdeveloped social infrastructure. A majority of the rural population does not have access to the limited social services and amenities, such as safe drinking water, education, electricity, and health services, and is thus struggling for survival. After the Second World War, some of the East Asian countries launched poverty alleviation programmes and attempted to reduce unemployment and underemployment by promoting the ruralbased industries. Their experience reveals that the rural economy cannot grow only through agriculture grOWth. Sustainable growth requires the creation of non-farm job opportunities that will raise the level of employment and income and, consequently, the standard of living. In the absence of such activities, farm unemployment increases and a large proportion of the jobless labour force tends to seek jobs in the urban informal sector, which creates problems of slums, poverty, and crime in the urban areas. Comprehensive field surveys are generally required to identify the areas which lie in the lower strata of the development ladder and to suggest effective targeting of welfare measures for alleviating poverty.

Making Improvisations, Reconfiguring Livelihoods: Surviving the COVID-19 Lockdown by Urban Residents in Uganda

The declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the enforcement of national lockdowns in several countries. While lockdowns are generally effective in containing the spread of infectious diseases, they are associated with negative impacts on livelihoods. Although evidence suggests that urban informal sector populations in low-resource settings bore the brunt of the adverse economic effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, there is little on how they survived. The article provides insights into the survival mechanisms of urban informal sector populations during a COVID-19 lockdown. Data are from narrative interviews with 30 residents of Kampala City and surrounding areas. We found that the COVID-19 lockdown chiefly jeopardized the livelihoods of urban residents through job loss and reduced incomes. Affected individuals and households primarily survived by making improvisations such as adjusting expenditures and reconfiguring their livelihoods. The cardinal elements of the informal sector, such as limited regulation, served as both a facilitator and constraint to survival. Therefore, the informal sector is an important buffer against livelihood shocks in situations of crisis. However, its inherent limitations imply that promoting livelihood resilience among urban residents during lockdowns and similar shocks may necessitate harnessing both formal and informal safety nets.

A Kaleckian model of growth and distribution considering the effects of the urban informal sector

In this paper we present an effort to integrate the informal sector into a neo-Kaleckian growth and distribution model. While informality is a relevant issue to all developing countries, our work is motivated mainly by the Brazilian case, where recent growth of informal employment occurs amid stagnation of the formal sector. We seek to shed light on the relationship between the expansion of both sectors and their influences on economic performance, using as theoretical background the reproduction scheme from Kalecki, now considering the informal sector into the model. Also, we seek to examine the extent to which the expansion of the informal activities can be helpful or harmful for the formal economy in the long run. Our model is consistent with observed empirical facts and reinforces some theoretical and empirical results, for instance, the resilience of the informal activity, its growth at times of economic expansion as well as in times of recession, and its ultimate dependence on the formal economy.

Movement of internal migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic in India: Enacting embodied citizenship

ABSTRACT This article examines the distress movement of circular internal migrants working in the urban informal sector back to their home states following the country-wide lockdown in India, to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyzes the migrant as being bodily materialized through the denial of relationality, intercorporeality and the situational experiences of their bodies, at the intersections of labour and gender. It argues that citizenship in India is substantively an embodied experience as validated by the return movement of the migrants, whose suffering bodies stood out in the public eye, in sharp contrast to rest of the citizens who stayed locked in their homes to protect themselves from the COVID-19 virus as per government order. It concludes that the movement by migrants constitutes their ‘acts of citizenship’, through which they performatively negotiated their migrant identity resisting their embodied difference by enacting themselves as political subjects.

Fire risk communication in the urban informal sector: Evidence from traditional marketplaces in Accra, Ghana

AbstractUrban marketplace fires in Ghana are chronic, devasting in economic losses and disproportionately impacting informal sector workers. Yet, the scholarly works on urban disasters have focused on hydrometeorological and other man‐made disasters to the neglect of marketplace fires, particularly the challenges in risk communication between emergency management agencies and urban marketplace workers. In seeking to extend the emerging but scant work on urban marketplace fires in Ghana, this paper analysed fire risk communication to understand how socio‐cultural factors influence the perceptions and protective behavioral strategies of traders in two traditional urban marketplaces of Accra. In‐depth interviews with both public agencies and traders showed that traders’ social networks and interactions are important sources and channels for fire risk communication, albeit unharnessed by formal emergency management agencies. It also revealed how cultural elements such as religious beliefs about fire risks affect proactiveness in fire risk preparedness and response. To ensure effective risk communication about marketplace fires, this paper calls attention to and mainstreaming of socio‐cultural aspects of everyday life in marketplaces into disaster risk planning and management.

Detecting the city-scale spatial pattern of the urban informal sector by using the street view images: A street vendor massive investigation case

Automatically obtaining information on informal practitioners, especially their spatial distribution, has proven challenging when using traditional methods. This study addresses this issue by presenting a street view deep learning method, called the Street Informal Practitioners Spatial Investigation (SIPSI) methodology. This paper's application of this technology focuses on the study case of the street vendor, which is one of the most visible occupations in the informal economy. There were 3907 street vendors that were detected using this method; as well, the kernel density estimation indicated that they agglomerated in a multi-core cluster pattern in the city. Further analysis of the factors that influence agglomeration shows that the street vendors prefer premises that are near the lower level of the road and the higher density population sites, whereas the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome keeps these vendors away from the central City Business Districts and high-rent regions. The presented methodology and the study results contribute to high-efficiency investigations of informal economy employment, and it further assists in advising for the spatial governance policies improvement and implementation in any cities whose street view images are abundant and open-access.

Pathways for Urban Food Security in the Pacific

The urban context is often sidelined in the academic discourse surrounding food security in the Pacific. Yet, for some Pacific nations, cities are the home for most of their citizens. In this thematic literature review, we direct our attention toward the increasingly important topic of food security in Pacific cities. We investigate how the urban informal food sector historically has provided a baseline of food security in Pacific cities. The production, livelihood, and exchange practices that define the urban informal food sector can be traced back to the forms of urbanisation and migration that occurred in the post-independence era in the Pacific. However, we also identify how urban formalisation and globalisation are undermining the key tenets of social relationality that the informal food sector relies upon. As such, the forms of food security provided by the urban informal food sector are being slowly eroded. By identifying these disruptions to the informal urban food sector, we identify pragmatic pathways to develop the basis of a conceptual framework for urban food security in the Pacific. These pathways revolve around invigorating the forms of social relationality within the informal food sector's production, livelihood, and exchange practices.

Urban Informal Sector Workers during the Covid- 19 Pandemic in Indonesia: Social Networking as a Strategy for Business Sustainability

Around 60,5% of workers in Indonesia rely on the informal sector, and in mid of 2020 almost half of them were in urban areas. The urban informal sector workers commonly are in small enterprises with low productivity, low liquidity, and negligible capital accumulation. They engage in street vending, home-based work, waste picking, domestic jobs, and other short-term contracts, and they do not enjoy workers’ benefis and social protection programs, thus they are vulnerable to shock, including Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic does not only bring negative impact on the health sector, but it has also triggered an economic downturn. In terms of urban informal sector activities, various social policies (PSBB, Java-Bali PPKM, Emergency PPKM and Micro PPKM) sharply reduce the economic opportunities for informal economy workers who rely to a large extent on the personal contact with customers. Job losses and decreased income have been experienced by the majority of informal sector workers. This condition has to be overcome with various strategies to be able to maintain the continuity of their economic activities. This article discusses the strategies of urban informal sector workers to maintain sustainable livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy carried out is focused on the use of social networks. The data used for writing this article is sourced from primary data. Data was collected using a qualitative approach in Bekasi Timur sub-district, Bekasi City, West Java Province. In addition, the article also uses the existing data related to the issued being studied.

The Political Exploitation and Human (In) Security of Illegal Street Vendors in the Post-colonial Urban Informal Sector of Harare in Zimbabwe

This article examines the complexities around urban informality, in particular illegal street vending in post-colonial Harare in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2021. It focuses on the positions of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party and the Movement for Democratic Change opposition political party regarding illegal street vending. The study acknowledges the role played by the broader macro-economic environment in initiating and sustaining informal trading practices in the City of Harare but establishes the link between illegal street vending and politics and the concomitant effects on human security. Among others, it uses Ananya Roy's ideas about how the state “makes and unmakes” informality and primary and secondary sources of data to mainly argue that the political exploitation of the illegal street vending activities in Harare has detrimental effects on both urban governance and human security. The article concludes that illegal street vending is an integral part of urban societies in Africa and beyond serving different needs in the local economy. Consequently, the politicization and human (in) security of the illegal street vendors in Harare can partly be mitigated when formal employment is generated and political parties stop interfering in the running of the city for the furtherance of their selfish agendas.