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CIAO DATE: 3/5/2007
Unequal Prospects: Disparities in the Quantity and Quality of Labour Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa
John Sender, Christopher Cramer
March 2005
Abstract
The issue of labour supply in Sub-Saharan Africa, like so many other economic and social issues in the region, is often discussed as if the whole sub-continent faced essentially similar, overwhelming and intractable problems. This pessimistic and over-generalised literature has been criticized elsewhere (Sender, 1999). By contrast, this paper stresses the importance of differences between and within Sub-Saharan African economies in the quantity and quality of labour supplies, and highlights the scope for policies to overcome constraints on employment prospects. The paper also points to the dangers of one-size-fits-all policy recommendations for the labour market, while at the same time identifying certain similarities in the characteristics of the most disadvantaged labour market entrants in many Sub-Saharan African economies. The aim is to begin to isolate the sub-set of policies that might be most relevant for these entrants, if donors and governments wish to re-allocate resources to improve prospects for the poorest Africans.
Not all relevant policies can be discussed. For example, countries "severely affected" by HIV/AIDS will need to adopt a different range of policies towards labour supply from countries with lower prevalence rates, but the details of preventive and curative policy options are not explored. The paper describes the complex effects of violence and violent conflicts on many aspects of labour supply, but does not discuss post-war reconstruction policy initiatives, or interventions to reduce conflict. And policies that influence the demand for labour will have dramatic dynamic effects on the quantity and quality of labour supplied, but are largely ignored in this paper. Historically, when demand for labour has been strong in Sub-Saharan Africa labour inputs have responded in a number of ways. Participation rates have increased; and labour migration has risen in response to demand for imported labour. It is also well-known that rising demand for labour generates improvements in the quality of the labour force, through learning-by-doing processes and static and dynamic returns to scale. This paper is not concerned with the detailed analysis of appropriate macroeconomic strategies to achieve the level of demand required for rapid growth. The paper does, however, examine some of the barriers that workers in different countries currently face in responding to changing demand conditions in the labour market. These include transport and other barriers to labour mobility (Section 5); the pre-entry structured disadvantage experienced by women and certain other categories of worker (Section 2); the inadequacy of information, communication and money transmission facilities available to workers (Section 5); and government policies that are, to different degrees in different economies, limiting some workers' access to the basic education, primary health care and the negotiating skills that are required for advantageous participation in labour markets (Sections 2-4).
