Striving for Better Jobs: The Challenge of Informality in the Middle East and North Africa

Gatti, Roberta; Angel-Urdinola, Diego F.; Silva, Joana; Bodor, András

doi:10.1596/978-0-8213-9535-6

Cited by 78 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…The informal wage penalty of about 19 percent found in this study when controlling observable characteristics is comparable to that of 12 percent found by Gatti et al (2014) (2013) in Russia found decreasing penalties over the quantiles which disappear in some cases at the top of the distribution such as in Russia. In contrast, we found that informal sector wage penalties increase across quantiles in Egypt.…”

supporting

confidence: 82%

“…Several studies indicate existence of a rather large informal sector in Egypt. The labor force not contributing to social security was an average of 45 percent during 2000-2007 and an average of 35 percent of GDP during [1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007] was undeclared (Gatti et al 2014). This is comparable to what is observed in Mexico which is 43% when social security definition is used (Marcoullier et al, 1997).…”

Section: The Background On Egyptian Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Informal sector in the MENA countries has been the topic of investigation in several recent studies such as Alloush et al (2013) and Gatti et al (2014). Similarly there has been some recent studies investigating informal sector in Egypt such as Wahba (2009) and Tansel and Ozdemir (2014).…”

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However little is known about the informal sector earnings structure compared to that of the formal sector in Egypt. Gatti et al (2014) is an exception but provide only cross section evidence in 2006 from Egypt as well as from several other MENA countries. We extend this analysis by taking unobserved characteristics into account and including estimating across the conditional wage distribution.…”

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, presence of large informal sector is one of the main differentiating characteristic of the developed and developing country labor markets. Recent estimates provided by Gatti et al (2014) put the informality rate, measured as the percent of labor force not contributing to social security, at 67 percent in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 61 percent in Latin America, 39 percent in Europe and Central Asia, 91 percent in South Asia and 95 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further, according to the same source there has been a rapid increase in informality in the entire developing world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Is There an Informal Employment Wage Penalty in Egypt?

2015

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This paper considers the private sector wage earners in Egypt and examine their wage distribution during 1998-2012 using Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey. We first estimate Mincer wage equations both at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution taking into account observable characteristics. Then we make use of the panel feature of the data and estimate models taking into account unobservable characteristics. We also consider the possibility of nonlinearity in covariate effects and estimate a variant of matching models. In all cases we find a persistent informal wage penalty in the face of extensive sensitivity checks. It is smaller when unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account and larger at the top than at the bottom of the conditional wage distribution. We also examine the informal wage penalty over time during the study period and in different groups according to experience and education. The informal wage penalty has increased recently over time and is larger for the better educated but smaller for the more experienced.

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supporting

confidence: 82%

Section: The Background On Egyptian Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is There an Informal Employment Wage Penalty in Egypt?

2015

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Estimating willingness to pay for public health insurance while accounting for protest responses: A further step towards universal health coverage in Tunisia?

Abu‐Zaineh

Chanel

Makhloufi

2022

Health Planning & Management

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Introduction: Developing countries face major challenges in implementing universal health coverage (UHC): a widespread informal sector, general discontent with rising economic insecurity and inequality and the rollback of state and public welfare. Under such conditions, estimating the demand for a health insurance scheme (HIS) on voluntary basis can be of interest to accelerate the progress of UHC-oriented reforms. However, a major challenge that needs to be addressed in such context is related to protest attitudes that may reflect, inter alia, a null valuation of the expected utility or unexpressed demand. Methods: We propose to tackle this by applying a contingent valuation survey to a non-healthcare-covered Tunisian sample vis-à-vis joining and paying for a formal HIS. Our design pays particular attention to identifying the nature of the willingness-to-pay (WTP) values obtained, distinguishing genuine null values from protest values. To correct for potential selection issues arising from protest answers, we estimate an ordered-Probit-selection model and compare it with the standard Tobit and Heckman sample selection models.

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Who Is Covered and Who Under‐reports: An Empirical Analysis of Access to Social Insurance in Egypt

Roushdy

Selwaness

2019

J of Intl Development

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This paper investigates the dynamics and determinants of having access to social insurance coverage on the Egyptian labour market among wage and non‐wage workers. The paper explores two issues: the worker‐level and firm‐level determinants of having access to social insurance and the risk of under‐reporting insurable wage to the social security authority. With the use of data from the Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey of 2006 and 2012, the likelihood of being enrolled in social insurance is estimated by a probit regression model for all workers, for wage and non‐wage workers, separately. The potential endogeneity between the type of work and social insurance access is addressed using instrumental variables approach. Results show that men, older, married, better educated and white‐collar highly skilled workers are more likely to be socially insured. Under‐reporting insurable wages is positively correlated with working outside the establishment and basic monthly wage, while it is negatively correlated with tenure and white‐collar occupations. High contribution rates requested from both the employer and employee, combined with basing benefits on wage level of the last few years of service, and the weak capacity of law enforcement encourage employers and employees to either not participate in the social insurance system or contribute on amounts that are lower than their actual wage. This paper is one of the few studies that focus on the phenomenon of coverage gap and under‐reporting salaries to the social security administration. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Striving for Better Jobs: The Challenge of Informality in the Middle East and North Africa

Cited by 78 publications

References 0 publications

Is There an Informal Employment Wage Penalty in Egypt?

Is There an Informal Employment Wage Penalty in Egypt?

Estimating willingness to pay for public health insurance while accounting for protest responses: A further step towards universal health coverage in Tunisia?

Who Is Covered and Who Under‐reports: An Empirical Analysis of Access to Social Insurance in Egypt

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