Zaire The Informal Sector
Women and children, Équateur Region
This category has grown substantially in the years
since
independence, particularly in the cities. It consists of
people who
lack regular wage employment and who engage in a wide
variety of
economic activities. Typical occupations include
tailoring, shoe
repairs, housing construction, taxi and bus services,
soft-drink
vending, masonry work, petty retailing, artisanal crafts,
prostitution, and petty criminality. In border cities, the
latter
category includes smugglers, who have sometimes grown
wealthy from
their illicit activity. Participation may be transitional
or
permanent. School leavers have been typical transitional
members as
they may engage in such activities on a part-time
subsistence basis
while searching for permanent employment. Older persons,
women, and
individuals lacking educational qualifications for wage
employment
have tended to remain in this sector permanently. Although
poverty
grips most people in this sector, individuals have
occasionally
prospered. More importantly, the size, ingenuity, and
redistributive capacity of this group have served as
buffers to
individual hardship during periods of economic calamity.
Data as of December 1993
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