Abstract
This chapter reviews empirical studies on the examination of wage inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and provides theoretical background on market discrimination. Besides, it presents descriptive statistics addressing disparities in the labor market and human development outcomes. The descriptive statistics indicate significant gaps in employment and human development achievements with a declining trend over the past years. Moreover, the empirical review shows a significant amount of wage gap, which is higher in the informal and self-employment sectors. A large proportion of the gap remained unexplained by worker and job characteristics, reflecting rampant labor market discrimination against women. Selection across sectors, occupations, and firms and human capital differences in education and experience account for the majority of the explained wage gaps.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Palgrave Handbook of Africa's Economic Sectors |
| Publisher | Springer International Publishing |
| Pages | 919-941 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9783030755560 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783030755553 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
Keywords
- Gender inequality
- Household
- Manufacturing
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Wage gap
