Testing for Labor Market Duality: The Private Wage Sector in Cote d'Ivoire

摘要

Research on labor market duality, in the context of developing countries, has identified the secondary segment of the labor market more with the self-employed than with salaried employees. A few recent tests derive information on the existence of duality and the relative magnitudes of the primary and secondary sectors entirely from the structure of the wage equation. These tests are implemented in the paper on data from Cote d'Ivoire. Furthermore, as an innovation relevant to the current state of the art, the paper estimates an indicator of the degree of formality of the job that a worker holds, and integrates this indicator into the structure of the wage equation. The information on which the indicator is built relates to job characteristics that are often thought to distinguish the primary from the secondary sector. (Copyright (c) 1990 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.)