Unemployment and discrimination in Cote D'Ivoire: A Gender Analysis

AuthorAkaffou KoffiKaudjis Agnes - Kouassi Patrick Franklin
PositionUniversity Alassane Ouatt ara of Bouaké - Ecole Supérieure Africaine des TIC
Pages9-28
European Journal of Economics, Law and Social Sciences
IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria
Vol. 3 No. 1
January, 2019
ISSN 2519-1284
Acces online at www.iipccl.org
9
Unemployment and discrimination in Cote D’Ivoire:
A Gender Analysis
Dr. Aka ou Ko Kaudjis Agnes (Ms YAO)
University Alassane Oua ara of Bouaké
Dr. Kouassi Patrick Franklin
Ecole Supérieure Africaine des TIC
Abstract
Are Women really discriminated in the Côte d’Ivoire’s labour market? Accordingly, di erent
variables that may help be er understanding women’s discrimination among job seekers have
been determined making use of data concerning 1.204 unemployed persons, on which both
pre-discrimination and discrimination analyses are based. Pre-discrimination’s determinants
are assessed with the unemployed data. The vulnerability and un-employability rates are
computed and unemployment duration econometric models are built. The results show that
women are e ectively discriminated. The nature of the constraints faced by women for nding
jobs reveals the prevalence of pre-discrimination. The literature’s survey refers to two economic
theories, Human Capital and Market Segmentation that contribute to a be er understanding
of discrimination towards women. It comes out that the more signi cant variables for women
entry on the job’s market are those of market segmentation.
Keywords: gender, unemployment, pre-discrimination, human capital, market segmentation.
Introduction
Job search is a test for every human being (Remillon D., 2006). It is a period full
of uncertainties concerning research methods, promising sectors, as well as the
future, nancial means, etc. The longer this period, the more the con dence of the
unemployed is eroded and its employability is a ected. Job search methods are
therefore not well known to all. This uncertainty is much more radical than assumed
by job search models. There are di culties in evaluating the unemployment test
because there are selection barriers using CVs such as: the lack of recognized diplomas
and the barrier of age. In addition, the job search methods used by the unemployed
are of several kinds. They are classi ed into three main groups of procedures:
market procedures, the use of institutional intermediaries and the social network.
First, market procedures are spontaneous applications and classi eds. They involve
direct contact with potential employers when submi ing the application. Secondly,
the use of institutional intermediaries concerns organizations specializing in labour
market intervention, such as State structures, temporary employment agencies
and recruitment agencies. To these, local institutions are added, whose primary
vocation is not to act on the labour market. These are the municipalities, the consular
organizations, the associations of the social eld (local missions ...). Finally, the social
Vol. 3 No. 1
January, 2019
European Journal of Economics, Law and Social Sciences
IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria
ISSN 2519-1284
Acces online at www.iipccl.org
10
network is none other than the use of personal relationships (family, friends) and
professional.
Theoretically, three approaches are used to deal with discrimination in the labour
market. The rst assumes that there is a "taste" for discriminating between economic
actors, which is re ected in the "displeasure" behaviour of an individual in contact
with another being part of one or other Groups of people. The second, called interest-
based discrimination, introduces the notion of monetary gains that a discriminatory
person expects. Finally, the la er, called statistical discrimination, presupposes an
imperfect (or even insu cient) information environment on the economic qualities
of workers. Thus, by referring to the di erentiation of economic opportunities and
remuneration among comparable individuals in terms of productivity, discrimination
can have e ects throughout a person's life cycle (Aka ou K., 2017). This explains the
distinction between pre-discrimination and market discrimination.
According to the clear and operational de nition of Arrow, the inclusion of
discrimination as an economic fact induces three remarks. First, it must be identi ed
by measurable factors in the labour market. Second, as a collective phenomenon, only
systematic di erences which do not vanish within large groups should be considered
as market discrimination. Finally, any di erential resulting from an average
di erence in productivity of groups is naturally imputed to pre-discrimination; as for
di erentials a ributed, for example, to sex or race, to constant productivity, they can
be a ributed to market discrimination (Combarnous F., 1994). Thus, using the data
collected and by means of an econometric analysis, it focuses on the determinants
of the pre-discrimination of women in Côte d'Ivoire, notably in Abidjan. Through
factors common to most of the data collected for this paper, the re ections conducted
are subdivided into two sections. The rst deals with models related to job search.
The second focuses on the determinants of women's discrimination in the Ivorian
labour market. Before doing these, it appears important to deal with the problem
statement and the methodology.
1. Problem statement
Discrimination is de ned by the ILO in Convention No. 111 as "any distinction,
exclusion or preference based on race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national
extraction, social origin ..." (BIT, 2003: 25). In practice, it consists of di erentiating
the elements of a set by means of one or more criteria, in order to apply a speci c
treatment to each subset thus constituted. Socially, it is the fact of di erentiating a
group of people from others and applying to it a speci c treatment, without objective
link with the criterion used to distinguish it.
The combination of policies and actions for women has resulted in a relative
improvement in the situation of women, in relation to what was previously the case in
Côte d'Ivoire. Women have greater access to education, training and participation in
the labour market. Indeed, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics
(INS) in 2002, their occupancy rate was 83.65% against 89.04% for men. However, major
obstacles to women's access to employment persist despite progress in integrating
them into the economic development of Côte d'Ivoire. Moreover, according to the

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT