The urban informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa: from bad to good (and back again?)

Figures & data

Table 1  Employment and self-employment^a in selected African cities in the 1960s and 1970s

	Employees (hundreds)	Self-employed (hundreds)	Self-employed (%)
			Total	Male	Female
Freetown 1963	256	130	34	22	69
Accra 1960	787	646	45	26	84
Kumasi 1960	323	488	60	43	91
Douala 1976	686	279	26	20	61
Yaounde 1976	555	159	22	20	34
Brazzaville 1974	334	205	37	27	73
Dar es Salaam 1967	792	159	17	16	23
Blantyre 1977	590	124	17	13	40
Lusaka (Africans) 1969	367	35	10	10	14
^aThese two categories are approximate surrogates for ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ employment.
Source: O'Connor (1983, Table 11). Data are derived from census reports.

O'CONNOR , A . 1983 . The African city , London : Hutchinson .

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