12
JOBS FOR SHARED PROSPERITY
(40–80 percent in the West Bank and Gaza and Egypt) and—as might be expected— smaller in the public sector. In fact, in the West Bank and Gaza’s public sector, women
actually earn more than men on average, perhaps because only the best female workers self-select for formal public sector jobs.
The working poor FIGURE O.17 Male-female wage gap in selected MENA economies, various years, 2006–10 100 80
Percent
60 40 20 0 –20
All workers
Public sector
Egypt, Arab Rep.
Private sector
Jordan
West Bank and Gaza
Source: Based on the Egypt LMPS 2006, the Jordan LMPS 2010, and the West Bank and Gaza LFS 2008. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa. The sample is urban workers working between 30 and 60 hours per week.
Who are the working poor? Earlier analysis of earnings, benefits, and working conditions has demonstrated that across MENA’s labor markets, informal jobs tend to be characterized by low pay and low productivity. Throughout MENA, informality consistently decreases as wealth increases, even though in some countries the phenomenon is widespread enough to affect the wealthier segments of the population as well, such as high-earning entrepreneurs (see Gatti et al. 2012) (figure O.18). Informality is a complex phenomenon; yet one segment of the workforce displays the lowest chance of accessing desirable jobs and the highest chance of being informal and poor unskilled rural workers, defined as those with a primary education or below who live in rural areas.4
FIGURE O.18 Informality rate by quintile of per capita consumption in selected MENA countries, 2011
100
80
Percent
60
40
20
0 Yemen, Rep. Quintile 1 (poorest)
Morocco Quintile 2
Syrian Arab Republic Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Lebanon Quintile 5 (richest)
Source: Angel-Urdinola and Tanabe 2012. Note: MENA = Middle East and North Africa. The consumption aggregate was not available for Morocco for 2010 when this report was completed. Hence, in this figure, data for Morocco are from the 2001 Living Standards Measurements Survey (LSMS).