IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i23p13269-d691905.html

The Informal Sector Facing COVID-19: The Case of Cameroon

Author

Listed:
  • Faustine Kede Ndouna

    (Applied Microeconomic Research Center (REMA), Dschang School of Economics, University of Dschang, Dschang P.O. Box 96, Cameroon)

  • Roger Tsafack Nanfosso

    (Department of Economy and Management, University of Dschang, Dschang P.O. Box 96, Cameroon)

  • Jean Aristide Biloa Essimi

    (Faculty of Applied Economics and Management, University of Douala, Douala P.O. Box 1872, Cameroon)

  • Laurent-Fabrice Ambassa

    (Laboratory of Economics and Applied Theories (LETA), University of Douala, Douala P.O. Box 1872, Cameroon)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on actors in the informal economy in Cameroon. To analyze the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on actors in the informal economy, we use secondary data from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). These data come from a survey of 1310 households. We performed data analysis using comparative methods and a labor market participation model that considers changes in people’s behavior towards health risks in order to explore and compare empirical results with earlier studies. From this analysis, it was revealed that job losses are more important in the informal sector (and, in particular, among men). We note that the absence of wearing a mask decreases the chances of having an informal job and of being suspended from one’s job during the crisis. Likewise, time restrictions that are not appreciated by workers will push actors more towards the informal sector. These results lead to recommendations that contribute towards providing support or direct support to informal workers in the sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Faustine Kede Ndouna & Roger Tsafack Nanfosso & Jean Aristide Biloa Essimi & Laurent-Fabrice Ambassa, 2021. "The Informal Sector Facing COVID-19: The Case of Cameroon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13269-:d:691905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13269/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13269/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Weber, Michael, 2020. "Labor Markets During the Covid-19 Crisis: A Preliminary View," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7rx7t91p, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Angelucci, Manuela & Angrisani, Marco & Bennett, Daniel M & Kapteyn, Arie & Schaner, Simone G., 2020. "Remote Work and the Heterogeneous Impact of COVID-19 on Employment and Health," IZA Discussion Papers 13620, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni & Ludwig Straub & Iván Werning, 2022. "Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(5), pages 1437-1474, May.
    4. Rajneesh Narula, 0. "Policy opportunities and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic for economies with large informal sectors," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 0, pages 1-9.
    5. Rajneesh Narula, 2020. "Policy opportunities and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic for economies with large informal sectors," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(3), pages 302-310, September.
    6. Michael Danquah & Simone Schotte & Kunal Sen, 2020. "COVID-19 and Employment: Insights from the Sub-Saharan African Experience," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(1), pages 23-30, October.
    7. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    8. Avenyo, Elvis K. & Francois, John Nana & Zinyemba, Tatenda P., 2020. "COVID-19, Lockdowns, and Africa’s Informal Sector: Lessons from Ghana," MERIT Working Papers 2020-028, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bagas Aditya & Ikhwan Amri, 2023. "Rethinking Informal Economy Resilience during Crisis: Experience from COVID-19 Pandemic," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(3), pages 711-737, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arceo-Gomez, Eva O. & Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. & Esquivel, Gerardo & Alcaraz, Eduardo & Martinez, Luis A. & Lopez, Norma G., 2023. "The impact of COVID-19 infection on labor outcomes of Mexican formal workers," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    2. Andr Kall k Anundsen & Bjørnar Karlsen Kivedal & Erling R ed Larsen & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2020. "Behavioral changes and policy effects during Covid-19," Working Papers No 07/2020, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    3. Gordon Betcherman & Nicholas Giannakopoulos & Ioannis Laliotis & Ioanna Pantelaiou & Mauro Testaverde & Giannis Tzimas, 2023. "The short-term impact of the 2020 pandemic lockdown on employment in Greece," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 1273-1307, September.
    4. Anundsen, André Kallåk & Kivedal, Bjørnar Karlsen & Røed Larsen, Erling & Thorsrud, Leif Anders, 2023. "Behavioral changes in the housing market before and after the Covid-19 lockdown," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(PB).
    5. Jaravel, Xavier & O'Connell, Martin, 2020. "Real-time price indices: Inflation spike and falling product variety during the Great Lockdown," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    6. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Cuong Viet Nguyen, 2024. "Agricultural Production as a Coping Strategy during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Rural Viet Nam," Working Papers DP-2023-23, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    7. Kong, Edward & Prinz, Daniel, 2020. "Disentangling policy effects using proxy data: Which shutdown policies affected unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Wolter H. J. Hassink & Guyonne Kalb & Jordy Meekes, 2021. "Regional Coronavirus Hotspots During the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(2), pages 127-140, May.
    9. Alina Butu & Ioan Sebastian Brumă & Lucian Tanasă & Steliana Rodino & Codrin Dinu Vasiliu & Sebastian Doboș & Marian Butu, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 Crisis upon the Consumer Buying Behavior of Fresh Vegetables Directly from Local Producers. Case Study: The Quarantined Area of Suceava County, Romania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-25, July.
    10. Nga Hong Nguyen & Trang Thi Thu Nguyen, 2022. "Assuring Social Equity and Improving Income from an Assessment of Government’s Supports in a Pandemic and Migrant Workers’ Integration in Vietnam," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, April.
    11. Shah, Sayar Ahmad & Garg, Bhavesh, 2023. "Testing policy effectiveness during COVID-19: An NK-DSGE analysis," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Segarra-Blasco, Agustí & Teruel, Mercedes & Cattaruzzo, Sebastiano, 2021. "The economic reaction to non-pharmaceutical interventions during Covid-19," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 592-608.
    13. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Weber, Michael, 2025. "The cost of the COVID-19 crisis: Lockdowns, macroeconomic expectations, and consumer spending," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    14. Lena Anayi & Nicholas Bloom & Philip Bunn & Paul Mizen & Gregory Thwaites & Ivan Yotzov, 2022. "Firming up price inflation," POID Working Papers 058, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Hung Van Vu & Huong Ho, 2021. "Analysis of Factors Influencing Credit Access of Vietnamese Informal Labors in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    16. Leonardo Baccini & Abel Brodeur & Stephen Weymouth, 2021. "The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 739-767, April.
    17. Giovanni Gallipoli & Christos A. Makridis, 2022. "Sectoral digital intensity and GDP growth after a large employment shock: A simple extrapolation exercise," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 446-479, February.
    18. Fidel Pérez-Sebastián & Rafael Serrano-Quintero, 2025. "The economic linkages of Covid-19 across sectors and regions in Europe," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 5-81, March.
    19. Fabio Vanni & David Lambert, 2021. "On the regularity of human mobility patterns at times of a pandemic," Papers 2104.08975, arXiv.org.
    20. Nicholas Bloom & Philip Bunn & Paul Mizen & Pawel Smietanka & Gregory Thwaites, 2025. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 107(1), pages 28-41, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13269-:d:691905. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.