Employment Vulnerability in Cameroon's Private Sector
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Date
2017-04-30
Authors
Anweh, Njang Vera
Thomas, Ndamsa Dickson
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research consortium
Abstract
This study aims to empirically investigate the distribution, sources, and consequences of
employment vulnerability among private sector workers across subgroups in Cameroon.
We construct an employment vulnerability index using the 2005 and 2010 Cameroon
employment and informal sector surveys (EES I and II). Results indicate that, in terms
of employment vulnerability, the youths, the informal sector, the female, and the other
cities (except Yaoundé or Douala) dominate the adult, the formal sector, the male and
the labour force in Yaoundé and Douala, respectively. The incidence of employment
vulnerability among the private sector labour force increased between 2005 and 2010.
Interestingly, we found that the responsiveness of private sector income to an increase
in employment vulnerability witnessed a drop between 2005 and 2010 in the private
sector, across gender and age group. Our results showed that people without tertiary
education and those in rural areas are exposed to vulnerable employment. We found
that formal sector employment correlates negatively with employment vulnerability.
Employment vulnerability generally reduces monthly income in the private sector. The
effect of employment vulnerability on income is gender neutral, but adults register more
adverse effects of employment vulnerability on income than the youths. These results
have implications for upgrading the skills, with emphasis on the rural areas, adults and
female workers in the fight against employment vulnerability. The results also highlight
the role that formalization of large informal sector may play in alleviating employment
vulnerability