Title: Employment Status and Workforce in the Formal and Informal Sector: A Case Study of District Lahore
Abstract: I. IntroductionHistorically, high population growth rate has been considered as an essential factor in overall economic development of Pakistan economy. The government made commitments to allocate funds and to measure on an innovative policy in order to highlight the issue seriously managing growth in population and the labor force. However, population is growing at a very high rate but the employment opportunities are limited to employ this high labor force. Improved health facilities and promoted population welfare activities through the Ministry of Population Welfare declined the crude birth and fertility rates significantly, that causes a curtailment in the average growth of the population accompanied by an increased labor force participation rate.In fact, the formal sector is incapable to absorb a growing labour force in the economy. However, formal sector also generate employment too for the labour force and its role is also important in employment. So that's why a greater part of labor force is forced to work in informal sector employment. The role of informal sector is imperative to create more employment opportunities in labor market in Pakistan economy. It provides jobs and also diminishes unemployment. It is also true that the productivity of labor is at low level and workers are not given protection against exploitation by the employers. Consequently, the informal sector must be promoted to employ the surplus labor. Govet should enhance the labor productivity in the informal sector and to protect the workers from exploitation in informal sector.The table shows the share of the informal sector participants. The employment status predominantly consists in the categories of employees (46.4%) and own-account workers (41.9). The former organizes the largest share of females (49.1%) and latter, of males (42.4%). It is observed that about one in ten (9.6%) as contributing family worker and near one in fifty (2.1%) comprises employers. It is also reported that male contributing family workers (9.2%) are about two-third of females (12.9%). As far change during the comparative periods, all seem to be declining except own account workers (40.5%, 41.9%).Govt has been identified different strategies tocreate new opportunities, and to decrease underemployment and unemployment. There is a serious need to create employment opportunities due to higher labor force growth rate as compared to population growth. The informal sector is defined to include the wage workers, own-account workers, employers and unpaid family workers because these workers are participating in small-scale economic activities to generate income. The share of informal sector is high in the urban labour market. Due to its importance, this study attempts to highlight its role in the employment and income generation. The major objective of the study is to highlight the determinants of different employment status in the urban informal sector of district Lahore.II. Literature ReviewThe literature on informal sector is reviewed. As Shah (1975) worked on determinants of labor force participation. The author used data from survey 1968-69 (PIS). The results showed that there was a positive relationship that forty and above age group, greater period of marriage and to a lesser extent the numbers of surviving children and labor force participation. Conversely, highly educated women with highly educated husbands were negatively related with labor force participation. The results also indicated that labor force participation decreased with ownership of agricultural land and durable items.Simpson et al. (1997) investigated the estimates of casual employment from 1984 to 1993 in Australia. The study results indicated that it expanded over the period very quickly as a ratio of the total workers. It was also found that the casual employment was considered a separate industrial distribution in Australia. Moreover, casual employed workers were comprised more than 40 percent in other professions. …
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
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