Fighting Poverty from the Street: Perspectives of Some Female Informal Sector Workers on Gendered Poverty and Livelihood Portfolios in Southern Ghana

Is better to be a kayayei than to be unemployed: reflecting on the role of head portering in ghana’s informal economy

“…We acknowledge that migration as a diversification strategy may exacerbate the vulnerabilities, risks and dangers for young females and people in general. However, this dimension of development has sufficiently been addressed by previous research on northsouth flows in Ghana (see Anarfi and Kwankye 2005;Oberhauser and Yeboah 2011;Ziblim 2013a;Yeboah et al 2014), and hence outside the scope of this present study. Our framework posits that migration as a livelihood strategy could be beneficial in three distinct areas:…”

“…Considering the rising cost of living in Ghanaian cities such as Accra, the earnings of Kayayei may be deemed as grossly inadequate especially when compared to formal sector workers. For example, in a 2014 study of 40 street hawkers and Kayayei in Kumasi, Yeboah et al (2014) found that Kayayei earned a daily average wage of GH¢ 20-40 (US $9.11-US $18.21) on a very a good day, while some do not earn anything on a bad day. This suggests that Kayayei earnings depend on the fortunes of the market.…”

“…Indeed young females who migrate from northern to southern cities of Ghana to pursue various livelihood portfolios in the informal economy have been a subject of intense research over the last 15 years. The avalanche of scholarly work that exist on these groups to the best of our knowledge have focused mostly on the risks associated with their livelihood strategies and the dangerous and abusive situations in which they find themselves (Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf 2008;Oberhauser and Yeboah 2011;Yeboah et al 2014).…”

Navigating Precarious Employment: Social Networks Among Migrant Youth in Ghana

“…The types of work they were engaged in at the time of the interviews are shown in Table 1. Yeboah et al 2015). Engagement in multiple jobs by one male migrant is to ensure higher daily wages and insure against any non-payment by his employers.…”

“…These young migrants have few skills and are involved mainly in low-skill, easy-entry activities such as mechanical repairs, shoe mending, hairdressing, truck pushing, commercial payphone services, dressmaking, barbering, running errands, shop assistant work, photography, food preparation and sales, and repair works including garment, watch and clock repairs, as well as hawking and head portering (Gough, Langevang and Owusu 2013;Heintz and Pickbourn 2012). Their working days are marked by longer working hours, irregular income, insecurity and lack of written contracts (Yeboah et al 2015). Youth researchers are now concerned with exploring young people's tactical and navigation strategies in negotiating multiple forms of transitions towards respectable social positions (Ng et al 2016).…”