INFORMAL SECTOR EMPLOYMENT AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF ELDORET MUNICIPALITY IN KENYA
ABSTRACT As formal jobs get more and more scarce while the number of potential workers continues to increase, the informal sector is increasingly becoming an important employer throughout Kenya. The crucial role the informal sector plays in the Kenyan economy was given formal recognition by the Government of Kenya in 1988 with the creation of the Ministry of Technical Training and Applied Technology to regulate this sector. However, despite this official recognition, very little has been done by the government to improve the welfare and working conditions of those involved in this sector. This paper offers a case study of the informal sector in Eldoret Manucipality in Kenya. In Eldoret this sector is vibrant and can be found in the busiest places of the Central Business District as well as in high density residential areas. The results of this study indicate a gendered division of the sector into two parts: namely, the production sector dominated by men and the service sector dominated by women. The centr...
Does the Informal Sector in Kenya Have Financial Potential to Sustainably Prepay for Health Care? Implications for Financing Universal Health Coverage in Low-Income Settings
Abstract Kenya currently lacks evidence on whether income in the informal sector is sustainable and predictable and therefore able to support financing of universal health coverage (UHC). This article demonstrates the financial potential of informal sector entities to sustainably finance UHC in Kenya. Data were collected using a standardized questionnaire on the following topics: nature and sustainability of informal sector entities, indicators of financial potential, and socioeconomic status. Both descriptive and multivariate analyses were used. The findings indicate that income in the informal sector is generally low although investors in health/medical, stationery, entertainment, manufacturing and craft as well as transportation tend to have higher and more consistent incomes than most others in both sites. Mean monthly incomes ranged from 16.7 USD (lowest) to 786.5 USD (highest). The urban informal sector recorded higher mean monthly incomes of 195.8 USD compared to 77.9 USD in the rural area (P < 0.001). The most sustainable entities in the urban area included stationery (67%), repair and maintenance (50%), food vending (49%), shopkeeping (48%), and clothing and beauty products (43%). Farming (90%), manufacturing and craft (86%), and health/medical (100%) were the most sustainable in the rural area. Key predictors of sustainable informal sector entities include monthly expenditure patterns, gender, marital status, household structure, number of employees in an entity, and land ownership in the rural area and number of entities owned. Informal sector entities are mostly unsustainable, meaning that the majority of premium contributors will not be consistent in payment and will likely to require subsidies.
The Use of Qualitative Information in Macro-Economic Policy Analysis
The majority of macro-economic policy models takes for granted that conflicts among objectives can be assessed by means of a tradeoff analysis. Such tradeoffs imply that sacrifices and benefits of various impacts of decisions can be measured on a cardinal scale, so that a conventional macro-economic utility or welfare analysis can be applied.