With respect to the age structure regarding the labour found inside the enterprises, the results show that the overwhelming majority are below twenty-one years. Adult workers of ages above twenty were found in Iess than a third of the enterprises. It can therefore be concluded that a generally young workforce mans informai sector enterprises, on the basis of the study's sample. The risk associated with such an age structure is that many do _not work for the same enterprise for more than three years, either because they Iack the commitment to stay, or are often in sorne rush to want to establish a
52
similar activity on their own. The latter expiains in part why the informai sector can be further replicated in many cities.
RESEARCH FINDING: Labour (workers) in over two-thirds of the enterprises are below twenty years old. This suggests that many of the entrants to the informai sector as weil as those that assist in the work are indeed very young.
Table 4 5 · The Age Distribution of Workers ( excluding entreoreneu ) b T
..
rs y Y2eo C lVIAGE GROUP ACTIVITY GROUP
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Taiioring TOTAL
7- 12 7 0 36 36 20
13- 19 79 64 43 64 62
20- 26 14 29 21 0 16
27 and above 0 7 0 0 2
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
4.2.6 Skills LeveZ and Qualification
0
Of particular importance to the productivity of any informai activity is the quality of the skills available inside the enterprises. In this study however, it is discovered that only about a third of the overall workforce had already undergone, completed and acquired sorne form of technical training.
Not surprising perhaps because of their low age, about 96 percent of all such workers obtained the training informally as Table 4.6 shows. The results indicate on the other hand, that a Iarger proportion of the workforce has not yet reached the status ofbeing described as quaiified. In other words, around two-thirds of the entire workforce are trainees/apprentices. And it is precisely against this observation that one concludes here that not oniy are skills Iow and undifferentiated, the majority of the workforce have not attained the Ievei of skills considered sufficient for informai sector operations. In addition, there are sorne noteworthy criticisms against the very informai apprenticeship system through which skills are diffused and accessed in the informai sector. Certainiy, because apprenticeship training
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simply passes on known practices, the skills of its graduates tend to be based on emulation rather than innovation, a sure recipe for noncompetitive production.
Table 4 6· .. Distribution of the Source(s) of Training of the Alreadv Skill db T - e y YQe o fA C lVl V f t (o/c) 0
SOURCE ACTIVITY GROUP
TOTAL
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring
Formai Vocational 0 16 0 0 4
Informai Apprenticeship 100 84 100 100 96
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE. The Survey
RESEARCH FINDING: Less than a third of the workforce inside the enterprises have completed training, almost ali via the classic apprenticeship system. The remaining two-thirds of the workforce have not completed training yet.
4.2.7 Gender composition of labour
In general, while women constitute a significant number in urban informai activities, the results obtained on the gender composition of labour suggest that production activities are male dominated.
Table 4 7· Gender Distribution ofWorkers by TYQe of Activitv
..
(in oercentage)GENDER ACTIVITY GROUP
TOTAL
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-dyeing Tailoring
F emale workers 0 7 87 7 25
Male workers 100 93 13 93 75
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
As the Table above shows, female workers are found in only 25 percent of the enterprises alongside sorne male workers. The remaining 75 percent of the enterprises are entirely male-composed.
One possible explanation for the gender imbalance demonstrated above may be due to societal factors, which often artificially demarcate between the different activities that men an women can do.
In the Gambia for example, while activities such as tailoring, carpentry and metalworking have long
54
been male dominated areas. Similarly, tie-dyeing has ever been a female dominated activity. It does appear from the results therefore that societal influence is still a major player in limiting entry by one sex into an activity traditionally meant for the other. Beside this contention, it is obvious also that women prefer to work in activities that are doser to their home, and/or require very little use of physical or manual power. Moreover they also choose to work in activities whose produce (goods or services) mainly target a female dominated clientele.
RESEARCH FINDING: There are more male workers than there are females. This bias may be explained by different factors, not least societal factors which still seem influential at demarcating activities on sex lines.
4.3. Profile of the Entrepreneur 4.3.1. Age
An examination of the age structure of the entrepreneurs reveals that the modal age is forty years.
This involves around 68 percent of the entrepreneurs. According to the results, the youngest reported age among them is twenty-one. These statistics therefore paint a picture that shows an overwhelming two-thirds number of entrepreneurs who may not remain actively involved in running the enterprise.
The high modal age demonstrated in the sàmple has obvious implications for the enterprises' future as one asks this question: what will happen to the enterprise if the entrepreneur had left, through ill-health or death?
It is the view of this study that an informai enterprise could survive beyond its owner through two means: (i) sale to an outsider (here one should expect that entrepreneurs in the same industry or, entrepreneurs in general, will be on the 'look-out' for opportunities to expand their business by acquiring similar businesses), and (ii) passing on the enterprise by sale or bequest to subordinate workers. Y et, it is widely accepted that none of the two means seems to be happening to any great extent in the informai sector. And so many enterprises may demise after their owners.
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RESEARCH FINDING: The modal (most reported) age of entrepreneurs in this study is forty and slightly more.
4.3.2: Nationality
The sample reveals that 60 percent of the entrepreneurs are Gambians (Table 4.8) as against 40 percent who are non-Gambian from countries in the sub-region and most notably, Senegal, Guinea Conakry and Sierra Leone. This statistics therefore reveals that over half the enterprises are owned and operated by Gambians, which is the contrary of a 1980 finding by an ILO/JASP A study in the Gambia in which more than half the 222 informai sector establishments surveyed were owned by non-Gambian (see surnmary in OECD, 1991). In spite of this change however, a closer look at the distribution shawn in Table 4.8 reveals that there is still a significant amount of foreign ownership of informai establishments in the country. This seems particularly so within the metalworking and tailoring activities in which non-Gambians (Table 4.8) almost twice outnumber Gambian entrepreneurs.
RESEARCH FINDING: More than half the surveyed enterprises are owned and operated by Gambian entrepreneurs.
Table 4 8· .. Distribution of the Nationality of the Entregreneurs by TYQe of Activitv (%-age)
NATIONALITY ACTIVITY GROUP
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring TOTAL
Garn bian 73 40 93 33 60
Other West African 27 60 7 67 40
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
4.3.3 Gender and Marital Status
Like in the case of their composition of the overall workforce, there are far fewer women entrepreneurs in manufacturing/production activities than men. This is drawn from the results, which reveals that female entrepreneurs own less than a quarter of all the enterprises in the sample (23 percent) as compared to male entrepreneurs found in around 77 percent of the enterprises (Table 4.9).
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A rather interesting discovery shown in the Table is that female entrepreneurs own sorne 7 percent of the carpentry workshops. However, it should be noted that the woman simply provides the capital and hires/employs a qualified male worker (usually a relative) to operate the workshop on her behalf.
Table 4 9· Gender Distribution ofEntreoreneurs bv TYQe of Activitv ( .. mQercen age t )
GENDER ACTIVITY GROUP
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring TOTAL
Male 93 100 20 93 77
Female 1 0 80 7 23
GROUP TOT 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
Table 4.10: Distribution of the Marital Status of the EntreQreneur by TYQe of Activity
Marital Status of the GROUP TOTAL
Entrepreneur
Married 83
Single 17
GROUP TOTAL 100
SOURCE: The Survey
Regarding the marital status of entrepreneurs, the results shown in Table 4.10 reveal that 83 percent or about three-fourths of all the entrepreneurs are married with, as many have described it, significant amount of family responsibility (Table 4.1 0).
RESEARCH FINDING: More than halfthe.entrepreneurs are men. Women on the contrary own by far less than a third of the enterprises.
4.3.4 Educational Background
An examination of the educational attainrnent of the entrepreneurs reveals that 29 percent of them only have elementary/primary school education. This in the Gambia means not more than six years of formai education. A further 26 percent stopped at secondarylhigh school education, while 5 percent (all of them reportedly non-Gambians) had post-secondary/college education (Table 4.11). These statistics therefore show that a good majority of the entrepreneurs had attained sorne level of formai
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education and not completely illiterate, although however, many had dropped out of school at sorne point which raised questions about the extent of literacy level among informai sector entrepreneurs.
At the same time an alarming 40 percent of the entrepreneurs never went to school, and could neither write nor read. Y et illiteracy is certainly a binding constraint to upgrading product quality and diversifying production, bath of which are needed to survive in the sec tor.
Table 4.11: Distribution of the Educational leveVAttainment of the Entrepreneurs by Type of Activitv ( in percentage)
ACTIVITY GROUP
Type of Education TOTAL
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring
Primary Level 17 38 30 20 29
Secondary/High Level 43 16 50 20 26
College/Uni versi ty 0 5 0 20 5
None 40 41 40 40 40
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
RESEARCH FINDING: Although more than half the entrepreneurs had sorne formai educational background, there still is an alarming number of them who never went to school at all.
4.3.5 Source of Skills and Years on Training
Equally important as the entrepreneur's formai educational background is the (type and amount of) formai vocational training he had received. Indeed bath are important for starting and running an activity in the informai sector. However, from an examination of the results obtained on this, (see Table 4.12 overleaf) an overwhelming 95 percent of all the entrepreneurs ( excluding of course, the female entrepreneurs in carpentry workshops who as noted, do not themselves run the enterprises) never received any formai training which is obtained from attending a formai vocationaVtechnical training institution. Accordingly as Table 4.12 reveals, the classic apprenticeship training tends to be the largest of all the conduits through which all entrants into the informai sector could acquire the basic skills and know-how needed to work in, start, and operate an enterprise. The other two
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important but less common sources from-where informai entrants acquire their training are formai based training institutions and the secondary schools. Only about 5 percent (ali in metalworking) and just 3 percent of ali the entrepreneurs have received sorne formai training from either a vocational center and/or from a past secondary school attended.
Table 4 12· Distribution of the Source ofEntreoreneurs' Training bv T:x:ne of Activitv (0;( o-age) Type/Source of Training
The results also reveal that the period of apprenticeship training may not be significantly more than five years. As Table 4.13 below shows, over two-thirds of the sixty entrepreneurs in the sample had at most five years of apprenticeship training while about a third, mostly reported among metalworking enterprises, went beyond five years of the training.
Table 4 13· Distribution showing Years SQent on Training bv T:x:ne of Activity (Qercentage)
ACTIVITY GROUP
Number of years Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring TOTAL
Five Y ears or Less 72 27 100 67 68
More than Five 29 73 0 33 34
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100
SOURCE: The Survey
According to evidence from desk research, the average time usualiy devoted by the master to training his apprentices varied between 8-13 percent of the total working time (lLO, 1985). Applying this to the present sample, where enterprises work an average of nine to ten hours each working day, the results indicate that the time the master spends on training the apprentices is just about an hour for
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every working day. One may therefore hazards a guess that five years of training is not too long a training period indeed.
RESEARCH FINDING: Acquisition of the basic skills required to start and run an informai sector enterprise is largely obtained informally via the sector's apprenticeship arrangement. At most five years is needed to complete the apprenticeship.
4.3.6 Past Employment Record
An examination of the past jobs experience of the entrepreneurs reveals that about 33 percent of the entrepreneurs had worked before in formai employment; 63 percent never had (Table 4.14) which suggests that as far as this category is concemed, the informai sector had been the first best option/place to find a job. The results also"indicate that around 4 percent ofthe entrepreneurs work in both the informai and the formai sectors, and are therefore said to be moonlighters seeking additional income from perhaps the less permanent of the two activities they do simultaneously.
Table 4 14· Distribution of the Job Historv/ Record of the Entre.Qreneurs (in _Qercentages) Em.Qloment Record Public Sector Private Formai Grou~ Total
N ev er Worked 74 52 63
Had Worked 22 44 33
Working* 4 4 4
GROUP TOTAL 100 100 100
Source: The Survey
*This indicates the extent of moonlighting practices in the informai sector Other jobs done by the entrepreneurs include farming
The importance of one's job experience is that like his educational background, an entrepreneur's formai job experience enables him to find and create for his enterprise market outlets for its products particularly in the formai sector (Abumere et al1998, p65; Hakam in lLO, 1985 p.26). A finding in a study in Ghana by Hakam showed that entrepreneurs that had work experiences from the formai sector were more dynamic in establishing business contact and are more innovative than their counterparts without ( emphasis added). Also such a persan is more likely to bring into the enterprise,
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training, skills and expertise that could be of help to the enterprises in very many obvious ways, including as shown, the possibility for creàting market outlets for the products of the enterprise.
RESEARCH FINDING: Less than a third of the entrepreneurs had formai employment experience.
For the rest (two-thirds) without that experience, it is obvious that the informai sector was the only place to geta job.
4.4 Business Profile of the Enterprise 4.4.1 Motives for Starting
There are indeed various motives for starting an enterprise in the informai sector. Those obtained here may not be regarded as different from what others have observed. However, from an examination of the question, the prime reason/motive that leads to establishing an informai activity is to create self-employment for entrants to the sector.
Table 4 15 · Motives for Starting uo Informai Business in the Urban Sector Motive for Establishing Business % of ResQonses
Creation of Self Employment 90
To Earn Additional Income* 26
To Make profits 10
To pursue a profession ever my fancy 8
TOTAL 134**
Source: The Survey *Thrs category mcludes moonhghters from the forma! sector plus those who work for the most part of the rainy season on the farms. **Multiple responses allowed
From the multiple responses received on the question, the distribution derived and shown in Table 4.15 indeed confirms that 'self-employment' has been the strongest most over-riding motive, which dictated the decision of90 percent ofthe entrepreneurs to enter the informai sector and start therein an enterprise. Only 10 percent of the entrepreneurs truly based their decision to run the business on profit-making considerations, which implies therefore that the profit motive is not too primary a consideration, although this does not mean that it does not constitute an important consideration at all in the sector. Indeed 10 percent of the responses re fer to it. The results also reveal sorne 8 percent of
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the entrepreneurs who said their current engagement in the informai sector is also a response to a long nurtured aspiration; many probably steppi~g into and/or enlivening a family traditional occupation.
RESEARCH FINDING: The strongest motive for starting an informai sector enterprise is to create employment for one's self. All other motives, including the profit motive, are considered secondary.
4.4.2 Assets Structure or Type
The commonest forms of capital goods and other properties held inside the enterprises/businesses as assets, mainly include a few electric machines (62 percent possess sorne form(s) of electric machinery), a rather narrow range of simple hand tools or equipment (including tools made from scraps and adapted for use by the sector-capital goods, no less), and workshops (53% operate on fixed and purpose-built workshops). Other possessions include warehouses (13% have sorne structure for storage and product display purposes), and motor vehicle (reported in just 2 percent of the sample), although these are less common and rare. Arguably however, ali the properties listed above have sorne market value and could presumably constitute and satisfy the collateral requirements of commercialloans by banks.
Table 4.16: Distribution of the Type of Assets held inside the enterprises by Type of Activitv (percentage)
TYPE ACTIVITY GROUP
Carpentry Metalworking Tie-Dyeing Tailoring TOTAL
Electric Machinery 53 93 0 100 62
Tools &Equipment 100 100 100 100 100
PermanentVVorkshop* 20 93 0 100 53
VVarehouse for Displa 46 7 0 0 13
Mo tor V ehicle 0 7 0 0 2
SOURCE: The Survey
*ln the study, a workshop means any permanent structure built of mud or cement blacks and roofed up possibly with corrugate; Makeshift structures made ofbamboo "kirinting" fencing are not permanent
Given the dearth of data, it was not possible to determine the monetary value of these assets (excluding the building). However, from simple estimation involving a few of the most affluent
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enterprises holding as much of the listed assets as possible, it was discovered that on the average, assets are a high ofD6000 [or D1200 ($120) per owner] in metal working/carpentry enterprises and D1250 [or D250 ($25) per owner] in tailoring, to a low ofD300 [or D60 ($6) per owner] in tie-dyeing activities. Elsewhere, where such data exist, the average value were a high of $25.6 in Nairobi in the 1970s, $447 in Djibouti in the 1980s (lLO, 1985 p20), and $211 in Zimbabwe in the 1990s (Takundwa, 1996).
RESEARCH FINDING: Typically, informai businesses hold only a limited variety of items as assets.
4.4.3: Credit for Capital Financing
Evidence from the sample confirms that funds for financing business start-up in the informai sector as well as the working capital required to keep one's business running, almost entirely come from the proprietor' s persona! savings. The survey found that assistance by friends, family members, and proceeds from sale of one's farm produce and/or livestock, in that declining order of importance, also enable proprietors to start and run their enterprises. The problem of financing, which often results in frequent shortages of working capital within months of many enterprise start-up, manifests itself in many ways and at different levels.
Firstly at the institutional level, only five commercial banks currently operate in the country' the number just increasing fairly recently by one ever since. Second/y, banks do seem to have the rule not serve small-scale operations, which are mostly found in the informai sector in the Gambia. Their refusai to serve is mainly premised on the following: the lack of collateral by many of small-scale operators, the small size of their transactions, their high mobility (or even mortality), the lack of bookkeeping practices among small business holders, and the lack of an appropriate compliance framework to guide any form of lending to informai sector operators.
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The third level relates to the fact that very few financial NGOs operate in the Gambia. In fact the desk research results, complimentary to this study reveal that the few NGOs that exist are, in the words of Esim (in Fidler et al, 1996; p120) 'embryonic institutions that offer fairly rudimentary financial
The third level relates to the fact that very few financial NGOs operate in the Gambia. In fact the desk research results, complimentary to this study reveal that the few NGOs that exist are, in the words of Esim (in Fidler et al, 1996; p120) 'embryonic institutions that offer fairly rudimentary financial