LABOUR STANDARDS APPLICATION IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY OF GHANA: THE PATTERNS AND PRESSURES

Angela Akorsu

Economic Annals, 2013, vol. 58, issue 196, 157-176

Abstract: In spite of the rapid growth and importance of informal employment in Ghana, few studies have investigated the extent of coverage of labour standards application, as a form of labour market regulation. This paper investigates the extent of labour standards application in shaping the employment relations and conditions within the informal economy. The study focuses on 30 manufacturing firms in Ghana’s informal economy. Data were obtained through interviews with 43 entrepreneurs and their workers, as well as with key informants from the social partners of industrial relations. The study shows that labour standards are generally not applied among informal economy operators due to factors such as a lack of coverage of the existing labour legislation, ineffective enforcement, ignorance, peculiarities of work organisation, and the dynamics of the apprenticeship system. It is therefore concluded that informal economy workers, who constitute the majority of the workforce in Ghana, lack social protection and must be targeted for intervention.

Keywords: Labour standards; working conditions; workers’ rights; informal economy; manufacturing; apprenticeship; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J80 J81 J83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ekof.bg.ac.rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/196-6.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:beo:journl:v:58:y:2013:i:196:p:157-176

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://ea.ekof.bg.ac.rs/

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Annals is currently edited by Will Bartlett

More articles in Economic Annals from Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Goran Petrić ().