Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal

Women in the informal sector in Mauritius: a survival mode

Harshana Kasseeah, Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur,
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survival mode", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, Vol. 33 Issue: 8, pp.750-763,
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EDI
33,8
750
Received 25 April 2013
Revised 19 September 2013
29 December 2013
15 July 2014 Abstract
Accepted 8 August 2014 Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of women entrepreneurs
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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:
An International Journal
Vol. 33 No. 8, 2014
pp. 750-763
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2040-7149
DOI 10.1108/EDI-04-2013-0022
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm
Women in the informal sector in
Mauritius: a survival mode
Harshana Kasseeah and Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur
Department of Economics and Statistics,
Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities, University of Mauritius,
Reduit, Mauritius
operating in the informal sector in Mauritius and to investigate the impact of women entrepreneurship
on their own livelihoods and that of their families.
Design/methodology/approach – Using survey data on 158 women entrepreneurs operating in the
informal sector, the authors analyse whether there has been an improvement in the standard of living
of women entrepreneurs as a result of their informal entrepreneurial activities.
Findings – Findings reveal that the informal sector has provided a self-employment outlet for
unemployed and retrenched women in Mauritius. Even if for a majority, their earnings remain low,
their informal activity has indeed helped to contribute to their livelihood and household earnings.
Research limitations/implications – Research on informal sector businesses is fraught with
limitations, given that these firms operate on the fringes of legality and data are thus a major issue.
Hence interviewing owners of informal sector businesses to get relevant data is quite challenging.
Practical implications – The results indicate that informal entrepreneurial activities contribute
positively to women’s livelihoods, hence policy should be aimed at encouraging women agency even
if it is in the informal sector.
Social implications – The study helps to shed light as to whether entrepreneurship even if it exists
in the informal sector helps to improve the living of these women and their families.
Originality/value – This study is innovative as it investigates the livelihood of a vulnerable section
of the population, in this case, women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector. The authors
find that the informal sector provides women with higher income when they are married and are more
formally educated.
Keywords Gender, Women, Entrepreneurs, Informal, Sector
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
High rates of unemployment have meant that a substantial proportion of the poor in
developing countries are being left to their own survival strategies to meet their basic
needs. These factors have pushed people into informal employment (Bertulfo, 2011).
For these people, the informal sector is the only arena in which they can attempt to eke
out a living ( Jennings, 1994). Given its capacity to generate employment, the informal
sector has been viewed as a possible solution to the problems of the poor in developing
countries (Moser, 1989). To overcome unemployment and underemployment, women
create their own employment by engaging in informal work as street vendors, hawkers
or home workers, but which expose them to both financial, social and health risks.
Within the informal economy, women are concentrated in jobs associated with low and
unstable earnings and with high risks of poverty.
Mauritius is no exception to the rise in the informal sector and the increasing
involvement of women in informal entrepreneurial activities. With the dismantling of
the Multi-Fibre Agreement and the EU sugar reforms in 2004, many garment factories
have closed down and have been accompanied by a cut in female labour force. Female
 workers who are mostly unskilled labour in the textile sector have been relatively more Women in the
affected than their male counterparts and have lost their jobs which represented informal sector
a major source of income for many. These women have moved away from the formal to
the informal sector due to their low skill levels and their inability to move to new in Mauritius
activities that necessitate training. There has been no specific study of the informal
sector in Mauritius and this study seeks to address this gap.
The paper has two main objectives. First, we examine the characteristics and profile 751
of those women undertaking informal entrepreneurial activities in terms of their
age, education, marital status and family background. Second, the study focuses on the
livelihood of women before and after their informal activities and observes whether
or not there has been an improvement in their livelihood. A survey of 158 women
operating in the informal sector in different regions of the island was undertaken to get
information on the profile of these women and the characteristics of their businesses.
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Our results reveal that informal employment has been for many women a way out of
poverty and a means of survival for their families.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on women in the
informal sector. Section 3 presents a situational analysis of the Mauritian economy
with particular focus on the informal sector. Section 4 sets out the research questions
and the methodology used. Section 5 analyses the data and discusses the findings.
We finally conclude in Section 6 with some policy implications.

2. Literature survey
2.1 Gender and entrepreneurship
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has discussed two types of
entrepreneurship, notably “opportunity” entrepreneurship and “necessity”
entrepreneurship (Reynolds et al., 2003; Steinberg et al., 2006). “Opportunity”
entrepreneurs are viewed as entrepreneurs who start a business in order to pursue an
opportunity while “necessity” entrepreneurship is more requirement-based and the
best option available in the absence of employment opportunities (Reynolds et al.,
2005). Similarly, there are both “push” and “pull” factors that encourage people
to entrepreneurship. Ritsilä and Tervo (2002) define a push-entrepreneur as an
individual who is faced with the absence of alternative personal employment
opportunities. Pull factors encouraging self-employment include individual choice
and agency with workers voluntarily seeking greater independence. The Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor (2012) report indicates that 187 million women are
engaged in entrepreneurial activity. Men make up 52 per cent of all entrepreneurial
activity compared to 48 per cent of women entrepreneurs. In Sub-Saharan African
economies women are much more likely to be driven by necessity than men when
starting a business (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2010).
Several studies find that while research on women entrepreneurs is extensive in
developed countries, there is a lack of studies on non-OECD and developing countries
(Hisrich and Öztürk, 1999; Lerner et al., 1997). Recently, Jennings and Brush (2013)
document the development of the body of work on women entrepreneurs’ research.
They find that the literature is quite broad. De Tienne and Chandler (2007) investigate
differences between male and female entrepreneurs and find that women and men
utilize different opportunity identification processes with different stock of knowledge.
However, research by Kalleberg and Leicht (1991) suggest otherwise as they find that
businesses headed by women were not more likely to go out of business nor were
they less successful.
 EDI Brush et al. (2009) propose a new gender-aware framework, which can be used to
33,8 further understanding of women’s entrepreneurship. Their paper builds on an existing
framework of 3Ms notably markets, money and management and propose that in the
case of women two further Ms in the form of motherhood and macro environment
should be considered as important. Jennings and Brush (2013) find that family
embeddedness is an important factor to consider when studying women entrepreneurship.
752 Women entrepreneurs often pursue goals beyond economic gain. As proposed by Cliff
(1998), women entrepreneurs appear to be particularly concerned about growing their
businesses in a controlled manner and they like to establish maximum business size
threshold.

2.2 The informal sector and women

The basic characteristics of the informal sector are namely: it does not pay taxes,
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does not need to abide by labour market regulations, does not produce tradable goods,
and is technically less efficient (Boughzala and Kouki, 2003). For Henley et al. (2009)
informal employment is used extensively to describe insecure forms of activity in the
developing world. The literature refers entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector
as “necessity entrepreneurs”, that is, those who do not find alternative employment
opportunities and take up unemployment in the informal sector. This contrasts directly
with evidence found by Maloney (2004) and Yamada (1996) who define “opportunity
entrepreneurs” as those who enter the informal sector by choice and attempt to
take advantage of business opportunities. The main reason cited in the literature for
operating an informal business is a lack of salaried employment opportunities. Hence
in many cases the reason for starting a business is explicitly related to survival.
The composition of the female informal workforce varies somewhat across regions.
In many African countries, almost all women in the informal sector are either self-
employed or contributing family workers or unpaid home-based workers (Chen, 2001).
Self-employment and women entrepreneurship has been growing in Africa as a means
of survival, but also to support their families (Gordon, 2000). Differences between
men and women outweigh differences between women and men in the informal sector.
Compared to the male informal workforce, women in the informal sector are more
likely to be own account workers and subcontract workers and are less likely to be
owner operators or paid employees of informal enterprises. These gender-based
differences in employment status within the informal sector have implications for
relative earnings and poverty levels.

2.3 Women entrepreneurs, informal businesses and improved livelihoods

Stimulating women entrepreneurship contributes to both economic and social inclusion
(Welter, 2004). A thorough understanding how SMEs grow is an important issue because,
according to Berger and Udell (1998) and Radovic (2007), small and medium-sized
enterprises provide the engine for economic growth for many countries. There is a strong
business case for promoting women’s economic development, entrepreneurship and
enterprise. As a result of important gender inequalities, women remain to some degree in
all parts of the globe-untapped economic resources and underutilised economic assets
(Landes, 2003).
Governments around the world are creating and implementing projects to
encourage entrepreneurship as a pathway out of poverty. Many projects specifically
target women in third world countries (Radovic, 2007). Downing and Daniels (1992)
explored female entrepreneurs’ growth patterns using census survey data in Lesotho,
 Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe. They find that first employment growth rates Women in the
of women entrepreneurs are significantly lower than men; females have not translated informal sector
access to credit and training into increases in firms’ employment to the same extent
that men have; even within the same sub-sector. in Mauritius
The majority of women in the informal sector are own account traders and
producers or casual and subcontract workers; relatively few are employers who
hire paid workers. Further, men and women tend to be involved in different activities or 753
types of employment even within the same trades: in many countries, for example,
male traders tend to have larger scale operations and to deal in non-food items while
female traders tend to have smaller scale operations and to deal in food items.
It is also important to understand why women are over-represented in the informal
sector and why women are concentrated in certain segments within the informal sector.
Many observers argue that women are less able than men to compete in labour, capital,
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and product markets because they have relatively low levels of education and skills
or are less likely to own property or have market know-how. Other observers argue that
women’s time and mobility are constrained by social and cultural norms that assign
the responsibility for social reproduction to women and discourage investment in
women’s education and training.

3. A situational analysis of the Mauritian economy after the trade shocks

Mauritius is considered one of the most successful stories in the context of the African
continent.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.1 per cent in 2010, up from 3.1
per cent in 2009 but lower than the 5.5 per cent in 2008. Despite challenges at home and
abroad, the government has maintained a steady growth path. In 2011, GDP growth
remained around 4 per cent. The standard of living in Mauritius is currently among the
highest in the African region with a present real Gross National Income per capita of
around USD 13,400. The Gini coefficient stood presently at 0.39 and the poverty rate
is a low 8 per cent. Mauritius leads Sub-Saharan Africa in economic freedom and is
ranked 12th worldwide, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom[1] (Miller
and Holmes, 2012).
However, despite its remarkable performance, the country is facing severe economic
challenges as the bases of its development are rapidly changing (AfDB, 2012).
Increasing labour costs and the erosion of preferential market access in recent years
have eroded the competitiveness of the textile industry. With the EU sugar reforms[2],
one of the main measures introduced was the Voluntary Retirement Scheme in 2001
and 2006 to reduce the labour force in the sugar industry. Many sugar factories closed
down and workers, mostly women lost their jobs.
The textile sector through the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) provided mobility
and empowerment to Mauritian women as in the 1970s as the EPZ sector turned out
to be the largest employer of female workers, where housewives left their household
chores to work in the garment industry. However, with the dismantling of the Multi
Fibre Agreement, this empowerment turned into disempowerment as factories closed
down and relocated to cheaper sites of production. Women employed in the EPZ sector
were mainly unskilled workers and were those who lost their jobs as a result of the
closure of these textile factories. Their lack of skills and inability of re-training pose a
significant hindrance to move to other sectors of the economy.
As from 2004, female unemployment has exceeded male unemployment and
the gender gap in the labour market has increased considerably (Tandrayen-Ragoobur
 EDI and Ayrga, 2012). More women are unemployed than men, representing 63 per cent
33,8 of those unemployed in 2011. Some 28,500 women are unemployed compared to 16,700
men. In 2012, the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent, higher among females
(12.0 per cent) than among males (5.1 per cent). Women are also less economically
active compared to men and are mostly concentrated in low-wage and unskilled sector
(Tandrayen-Ragoobur et al., 2011).
754 Mauritius has been encouraging women to set up their small businesses but many
of them are involved in low value added activities such as the production and sale of
food, handicrafts and souvenirs. They engage in similar activities and compete among
themselves, thus making it difficult to create a niche for their products. They suffer due
to their lack of skills and education.
Factors such as rising living costs, the need to maintain living standards and the
emergence of an “enterprising culture” have contributed towards the expansion
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of the informal sector in Mauritius. The growth of street traders and hawkers can
further be attributed to the import liberalisation policy, the removal of duties on
textiles and garments, and the expansion of the textile/garments manufacturing in the
country. During the festive periods, unlicensed traders spring up business at
street corners or on pavements. Apart from unlicensed street traders, other forms of
home-based and small income-generating activities have sprang up throughout the
country engaged in tailoring, embroidery, catering, repairs, decorations and other
workshop services.

4. Survey data and methodology

4.1 Survey data
To deal with the non-availability of data, a survey was carried out to better understand
the characteristics of women entrepreneurs in the informal sector and the change in
their livelihood as a result of their informal activities. The survey involves the use
of a tailor made questionnaire, with a pre-formulated set of questions. The first part of
the questionnaire gathers information on the profile of the women entrepreneur,
profile of her family and her family responsibilities. The second part includes data on
her present activities, sector of activity, details of her previous occupation(s);
her turnover and profits. The last part of the questionnaire relates to the change
in her livelihood before and after her engagement in the informal sector. The
questionnaire was translated in “creole”[3] to facilitate communication with the female
entrepreneurs.
The questionnaire was pre-tested initially with few people working in different
sectors to ensure consistency and relevance to the Mauritian case. Minor changes
were implemented before carrying out the final survey. The questionnaires were then
distributed to Mauritian women of different age group and of different educational
level in the informal sector. Field workers went in different parts on the island,
including rural and urban regions and the questionnaires were filled in by the field
workers through questions asked to women operating on the streets, near their houses
and near the market places among others.
Our analysis is based on the responses of 158 women entrepreneurs operating in the
informal sector in different regions across the island. The sample considers women
who are working in different sectors of activity, owners with different educational
backgrounds and in different age groups. The survey cuts across the retail sector with
women entrepreneurs involved in the sale of various items such metal products,
jewellery, handicrafts, rubber plastic, garments and food among others.
 4.2 Methodology Women in the
4.2.1 Sampling strategy. Informality in employment has always been a challenge informal sector
for statistical measurement (International Labour Organisation, 2011). A recent
survey on employment in the informal economy was conducted in the first in Mauritius
half of 2011 by the ILO, where data was collected on key variables including
employment in the informal sector and informal employment. From this survey,
the total number of people in Mauritius operating and employed in the informal 755
sector amounts to 57,000 while the number of female in informal activities stands
at 14,000 (ILO, 2011). From this population, a sample was designed which would
be representative of the total number of women operating in the informal sector in
Mauritius.
A stratified sampling strategy was applied where the characteristics of individuals
were used as the basis of selection to reflect the diversity and breadth of the sample
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population. The population is divided into three groups based on characteristics

such as age, education and location of the respondent. To determine the sample size,
three criteria need to be specified namely the level of confidence, the level of precision
and the degree of variability in the attributes being measured (Miaoulis and
Michener, 1976).
The resulting sample size is demonstrated in the following equation.
n0 ¼ Z 2 pq=e2 ¼ ð1:65Þ2 ð0:5Þð0:5Þ=ð0:065Þ2 ¼ 161, where maximum variability
assumed p ¼ 0.5, the targeted level of significance is 90 per cent and the level of
precision is 6.5 per cent. We use 6.5 per cent for the level of precision since it has been
expensive, time consuming and often impractical to access the women entrepreneurs in
their informal activities. Many of them were reluctant initially to answer the
questionnaires and field workers had to win over their confidence and get their
responses. Long distance travelling and difficulties in getting the women entrepreneurs
to participate in the study increased the difficulties in carrying out the survey.
Since the population is small, the sample size can be reduced slightly. This is
because a given sample size provides proportionately more information for a small
population than for a large population. The sample size (n0) can be adjusted
as n ¼ 1þðn0n1
0 161
Þ=N ¼ 1þð1611Þ=4;200 ¼ 155, where N is the population size. In fact, the
sample covers 158 women operating in the informal sector.

5. Characteristics of women entrepreneurs in the sample

Table I provides details on the characteristics of women entrepreneurs in terms of age,
education level, marital status and their former income-earning activity. Most of the
women entrepreneurs are aged 41 years and above. This is in line with Sookram and
Watson (2008) where the average age of women in the informal sector in Trinidad and
Tobago is 37 years. Table I also indicates that a large majority of women are married
with children as the average family seems to consist of the husband, wife and
two children. For around half of the women surveyed, their husband does not work,
implying that they may be the sole bread-winner.
Women in the sample are also characterised by their low level of education.
Half have only primary level schooling (that is a total of six years of schooling),
37 per cent have completed secondary level and 10 per cent have no education. These
results are again in line with the Sookram and Watson (2008) for Trinidad and Tobago
and Williams and Gurtoo (2011) for India.
The descriptive statistics indicate that the majority of women (50 per cent)
operating in the informal sector was previously unemployed. Around 33 per cent was
 EDI Frequency %
33,8
Age
Less than 25 5 3.2
Between 25 and 30 7 4.4
Between 31 and 35 7 4.4
756 Between 36 and 40 24 15.2
Between 41 and 50 63 39.9
More than 51 52 32.9
Total 158 100.0
Education level
Primary 82 51.9
Secondary 58 36.7
Diploma 1 0.6
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Degree 1 0.6
None 16 10.1
Total 158 100.0
Marital status
Married 113 71.5
Widow 19 12.3
Divorced/separated 12 7.6
Single 12 7.6
Live with a partner 2 1.3
Total 158 100
Family size
1 6 3.8
2 20 12.7
3 33 20.9
4 46 29.1
5 29 18.4
6 17 10.8
8 or more 7 4.2
Total 158 100.0
Former activity
Unemployed 79 50.0
EPZ sector 52 32.9
Non-EPZ sector 27 17.1
Total 158 100.0
Table I.
Frequency table Source: Computed – authors’ own survey 2011

previously working in the EPZ sector while 17.1 per cent was in the non-EPZ sector
before their informal activities. This provides a clear picture that with the end of the
Multi-Fibre Agreement and closure of textile factories, women who have lost their job
have moved to the informal sector and they are mostly aged 30 or above.
We find that the majority of women entrepreneurs from the informal sector are
involved in the sale of garments and food. This is similar to the finding by Leino
(2009) where women tend to be concentrated in business activities such as retail
trade and food and garment production. Around half of women entrepreneurs
surveyed have businesses operating in the informal sector for less than 2 and
2-5 years. This implies that most of them had another job before, mainly in the
formal sector.
 6. The livelihood of women in the informal sector Women in the
In this section we analyse the earning of women entrepreneurs in the informal sector. informal sector
Table IV provides a comparative analysis of the earning of women in the sample
and that of their husbands. Out of the total, 77 women entrepreneurs have husbands in Mauritius
who are in employment while 42 have husbands who are unemployed. Women
entrepreneurs are more likely to be operating in the informal sector when the income
level of the husband is low. The findings indicate that women entrepreneurs are 757
more likely to be working when the husband’s income is low which emphasises the
contribution of women to household income (Table II).
A majority of women entrepreneurs reported that having their own business
has contributed positively to their livelihood. Table III below shows that 87
per cent of women felt that informal activities have contributed positively to their
livelihood.
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When examining the factors that contribute positively to the income levels of
women entrepreneurs in the informal sector, it is observed that there is a positive
correlation between education and informal activities, which confirms that better
educated women perform better and understand how to adopt appropriate business
strategies to survive in the market. A positive correlation is also found between those
women in the age group 35 to 50 and their income levels achieved in informality.
Marital status is also positively correlated with income levels. Those women operating
in food, handicrafts and jewellery also appear to be better off and those women
entrepreneurs who have their informal activity for more than ten years also tend
to benefit more than those who have recently join the informal sector. Table IV
illustrates the correlation between various variables obtained from the survey data.
However, these are only correlation coefficients and to have a better picture of the
factors that cause women entrepreneurs to have a decent income from their informal
activity and henceforth benefit from a rise in their livelihood, we need to estimate the
model in Equation (1).

Earnings of women entrepreneurs Earnings of husband

Number % Number %

Less than Rs. 5,000 103 65 29 38

4Rs. 5,000 but oRs. 10,000 48 30 36 47
4Rs. 10,000 but oRs. 20,000 7 4 10 13 Table II.
4Rs. 20,000 0 0 2 3 Earnings of women
entrepreneurs and
Source: Computed earnings of husband

Frequency %

No positive contribution to livelihood 20 12.66

Positive contribution to livelihood 138 87.34
Total 158 100 Table III.
Contribution of informal
Source: Computed activity on livelihood
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33,8
EDI

758

Table IV.

characteristics
income of female
Correlation between

entrepreneurs and their

Firm Firm
Age Age Non-EPZ Primary Secondary Family age age Rubber Other
Income 3,650 50 Sector Edu Edu Married Size p10 410 Food Garments Handicraft Plastic Jewellery sectors

Income 2 1.00
Age 3,650 0.07 1.00
Age 50 0.09 0.78 1.00
EPZ sector 0.07 0.14 0.21 1.00
Primary
education 0.07 0.03 0.14 0.11 1.00
Secondary
education 0.16 0.16 0.31 0.12 0.79 1.00
Married 0.23 0.16 0.21 0.02 0.10 0.25 1.00
Family size 0.09 0.12 0.17 0.09 0.09 0.05 0.23 1.00
Firm age
(p10) 0.01 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.07 0.10 0.00 0.05 1.00
Firm age
(410) 0.16 0.05 0.10 0.12 0.03 0.10 0.16 0.18 0.32 1.00
Food 0.13 0.06 0.12 0.05 0.09 0.19 0.08 0.08 0.08 0.03 1.00
Garments 0.11 0.03 0.04 0.08 0.09 0.12 0.01 0.03 0.15 0.14 0.69 1.00
Handicrafts 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.08 0.04 0.00 0.04 0.11 0.01 0.16 0.14 1.00
Rubber plastic 0.05 0.03 0.16 0.05 0.07 0.12 0.08 0.07 0.05 0.01 0.17 0.15 0.09 1.00
Jewellery 0.05 0.06 0.12 0.03 0.01 0.09 0.00 0.10 0.17 0.09 0.23 0.20 0.04 0.07 1.00
Other sectors 0.10 0.05 0.15 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.14 0.04 0.04 0.13 0.16 0.20 0.25 0.05 0.04 1

Source: Computed
 7. Model specification Women in the
We next analyse the factors influencing income earned by women entrepreneurs in informal sector
the informal sector. The livelihood of women entrepreneurs is analysed via logistic
regression techniques. The equation is formulated as follows: in Mauritius
IncomeEarnedi ¼ b0 þ b1 Age þ b2 PrimaryEducationi þ b3 SecondaryEducationi
þ b4 PreviousWorkEPZi þ b5 MaritalStatusi þ b6 FamilySizei 759
þ b7 FirmAge þ b8 Sectori þ ei ð1Þ
where i is the women entrepreneur in the informal activity; IncomeEarned is income
range taking a value of 1 if income is equal to and above than Rs. 5,000[4] and 0,
otherwise. Age is age of the women entrepreneur. A positive link is expected between
middle-aged women and their participation and income earned in the informal sector as
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most women operating presently in informal activities are those who were previously
employed in the EPZ sector. PrimaryEducation is whether the women entrepreneur has
been attending primary school that is a maximum of six years of schooling while
SecondaryEducation is whether the respondent has been attending secondary school.
The higher the level of education, the higher the income earned in the informal sector as
educated women entrepreneurs will be in a better position to innovate their products to
face existing competition. Hence, a positive link is expected. PreviousWorkEPZ is a
dummy denoting whether the previous job of the entrepreneur has been in the EPZ sector
or not. A priori a positive relationship is likely to exist between previous employment in
the EPZ sector and women involvement in the informal sector as previously discussed.
With the end of the MFA, women have lost their jobs and their inability to move to other
sectors of activity because of lack of training has compelled them to engage in informal
activities. They usually tend to specialise in the similar textile and clothing activities in
the informal sector, hence their experience help in generating more income.
MaritalStatus takes a value of 1 is the person is married and 0, otherwise and a
positive link is assumed as married women with families are likely to see the informal
sector as a survival income stream for their families. Family size represents the size
of the family of the individual where the higher the number of family members, the
greater the need for income. In addition, firm age (FirmAgei) relates to the number of
years the female entrepreneur has been in a particular informal activity. The greater
the number of years the women entrepreneur has been operating in the informal sector,
the likelihood of having higher income is more pronounced; henceforth a positive link
is expected. Sectori represents different sectors like food, garments, jewellery, handicrafts,
rubber plastics and other sectors. ei is the error term.
The results are presented in Table V below where we note that those women who
previously were employed in the EPZ sector survive better in informal activities. In fact,
women tend to get locked within the same and traditional activities. Similar results
have been found by Bhatt (2006) and Kapoor (2007) for India where selling flowers at the
temple is among the traditional informal activities. In addition, female entrepreneurs
who have at least secondary education tend to benefit from a higher income compared
to those with primary education only and uneducated ones. Hence, women with a formal
education in the informal sector underscores the lack of employment opportunities the
economy. Similar results have been observed for South Africa (Willemse, 2011).
The marital status of women appears to be a significant factor determining their
income levels in the informal sector. Married women tend to have higher income than
single ones, widowed, divorced and separated women. It may be that they benefit from
 EDI Variables Marginal coefficients SE z P4z [95%-CI] X
33,8
Age 3,650 0.007 0.127 0.050 0.959 0.256-0.243 0.551
Age 50 0.017 0.146 0.120 0.908 0.303-0.270 0.329
EPZ sector 0.151* 0.084 1.790 0.073 0.317-0.014 0.215
Primary education 0.213 0.154 1.380 0.166 0.089-0.515 0.519
760 Secondary education 0.320* 0.174 1.840 0.066 0.021-0.661 0.367
Married 0.164* 0.091 1.810 0.071 0.014-0.343 0.715
Family size 0.007 0.019 0.390 0.698 0.029-0.044 4.133
Firm age (p10) 0.040 0.122 0.330 0.741 0.198-0.279 0.222
Firm age (410) 0.190* 0.109 1.730 0.084 0.025-0.404 0.266
Food 0.022 0.215 0.100 0.920 0.400-0.444 0.361
Garments 0.094 0.206 0.450 0.649 0.310-0.497 0.456
Handicrafts 0.036 0.200 0.180 0.858 0.356-0.428 0.044
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Rubber plastic 0.133 0.192 0.690 0.490 0.509-0.244 0.051

Table V. Jewellery 0.127 0.230 0.550 0.582 0.325-0.578 0.089
Logit regression results Other sectors 0.282 0.259 1.090 0.277 0.226-0.789 0.044
linking income of female
entrepreneurs with their Note: *Significance at the 10 per cent level
characteristics Source: Computed

the support of their husband who may also operate in the informal sector. Women
entrepreneurs who have been operating more than ten years in their informal activities
tend to earn more income compared to women who have recently join the sector.
The other variables are, however, insignificant. Hence the main finding in the paper is
that the informal sector provides women with higher income when they are married
and are more formally educated.

8. Conclusion
In Mauritius, women have moved in the informal sector as a result of layoffs from
their previous jobs but also from the failure of the formal sector to consider their
contribution. Findings from this study indicate that retrenched female workers and
unemployed women have indeed moved to the informal sector to earn their living.
The analysis of survey data reveals that the informal sector has indeed provided
a self-employment outlet for unemployed and retrenched women workers. Most of the
women-entrepreneurs can be defined as “necessity” entrepreneurs who have started
their own businesses due to a lack of opportunities in the formal sector.
Due the rising costs of living, women are increasingly being called upon to contribute
to household income. Many women lacking necessary skills have turned to the informal
sector to gain their living. This study is a contribution to the literature as it demonstrates
that the informal sector provides higher incomes to women entrepreneurs who are married
and more formally educated. Our study helps to shed light as to whether entrepreneurship
even if it exists in the informal sector helps to improve the living of these women and
their families. Overall, in Mauritius, women entrepreneurship in the informal sector has
contributed to the livelihood of women entrepreneurs. Even if for a majority their earnings
remain low, their informal activity has indeed helped them to contribute to their household
income and this has important social and policy implications.
Notes
1. The Index measures economic openness, regulatory efficiency, rule of law, and
competitiveness.
 2. This led to a fall of 36 per cent in sugar prices, followed by the government and the private Women in the
sector adopting the Multi Annual Adaptation Strategy to restructure the sugar sector.
informal sector
3. Creole is the mother tongue of the country.
in Mauritius
4. Rs. 5,000 is used as the income line, based on the present Mauritian poverty line. People
earning below Rs. 5,000 are considered to be in absolute poverty.

761
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Corresponding author
Dr Harshana Kasseeah can be contacted at: h.kasseeah@uom.ac.mu

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