Abstract

Hayat ben ayad 1
Siham zarrari2

The informal economy plays a significant role in wealth creation and employment in developing countries, but this role is controversial in terms of development. Indeed, while the informal economy generates jobs and income, acting as a safety valve for the most vulnerable segments of the population, it also has negative impacts, given the low level of productivity and the high precariousness of the jobs created, as well as the substantial loss of tax revenue and the duality that it induces in the business environment and that jeopardizes the regulatory framework. Jobs and incomes differ depending on whether people work for others or for themselves, and the segmentation between the formal and informal economies also affects men and women unequally. Informality has allowed women to increase their participation in the labor market, but the gaps between women and men remain significant.

In Morocco, women's participation in the labor market is characterized by its relatively low level compared to other countries, both developed and developing. The female activity rate will not exceed 21% in 2021. This low participation of Moroccan women in the labor market is reflected even in their presence in the informal sector. Indeed, the rate of female employment in the informal sector does not exceed 10.5% and the share of women heads of informal production units is 9%.

However, while it appears that women are less involved in informality than men, when they are, they do not hold the same jobs and are in more vulnerable situations, receiving lower incomes and being exposed to poorer working conditions than men.
This paper proposes to first take stock of the place of women in the informal sector and of their working conditions and then to explain the differences observed between men and women. In other words, it is an attempt to answer the following questions:
1) Are the mechanisms and conditions for the exercise of informal activity comparable between men and women?
2) To what extent do the aspirations and constraints differ for men and women?

3) Are the differences in the situations of informality observed between men and women the result of differences in characteristics, preferences and constraints?

The data used in this work come from the national survey on the informal sector of 2014 with 10085 informal production units and the national survey on employment carried out by the HCP.
Keywords: informal sector, informal employment

Hayat ben ayad : : Statistician-Engineer Head unit of sector informal Survey, High Commission for Planning h.benayad@hcp.ma
Siham zarrari : Statistician-Engineer Head of Division House hold Survey, High Commission for Planning s.zarrari@hcp.ma