Wage Dynamics in Africa - Achievements and Challenges

This book addresses the long understudied topic of wage issues in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It offers an overview of wage issues in Africa, examines income inequalities, wages and causality, as well as wage determinants such as shocks, representations, and earning strategies. It also examines gender issues in the labour market.
The book consists of 14 chapters divided into four parts. It covers several countries from North Africa (Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) and Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Kenya, Mauritania and Senegal), with Cameroon and Senegal being covered twice. Statistical data before 1990-2000 are incomplete and the literature on the subject remains limited. While the African labour market shares similarities with other labour markets, it also has some unique characteristics. Only 27 per cent of workers are employees, two-thirds of whom work in the informal economy. Wage growth in Africa has been slow since the 1990s, with the exception of countries such as Botswana and Mauritius, where it has been particularly rapid. Looking at labour issues across such a wide range of countries proved to be a valuable asset. It confirmed, firstly, that there is a positive correlation between growth in wage employment and GDP and, secondly, that the boundary between formal and informal enterprises and jobs can shift towards more or less formality.

List of contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: A Journey into Theories and Stylised Facts about Wages in Africa (Philippe Adair).- Part 1: An Overview on Wage Issues in Africa: Facts, Theories and Dynamics.- Chapter 2. Long Term Wage Issues in Africa (Michel-Pierre Chélini).- Chapter 3. Wages and Economic Development, Theories and Models (Stéphane Callens).- Chapter 4. Labourers, Salaried Workers and Salary: Making and Un-making of the African Working Class (Jean Copans).- Chapter 5. Emerging Countries of Africa and Wage Dynamics (Gwenaëlle Otando).- Part 2: Income Inequalities, Wages and Causality.- Chapter 6. Top Expenditure Distribution in North Africa and Middle East Countries and the Inequality Puzzle (Vladimir Hlasny).- Chapter 7. Labour Market and Wages in Cameroon since Independence (1960-2022) (Ghislaine Bamseck).- Chapter 8. Income Inequalities and the Informal Economy in Morocco (Othmane Bourhaba).- Part 3: Wage Determinants: Shocks, Representations and Earning Strategies.- Chapter 9. Labour in Senegal under Structural Adjustment (1980s and 1990s): A Fictitious Market (Eveline Baumann).- Chapter 10. The Effect of Higher Learning on Graduates Salary in Tunisia (Emna Zamel).- Chapter 11. The Perception of Wages in Contemporary Mauritania: Between Craze and Social Positioning (Ousmane Wague).- Chapter 12. Cultivating Youth Economic Resilience: Diverse Income Strategies (Everlyne Ngare).- Part 4. Wage Gaps: Youth, Informality and Gender.- Chapter 13. Rising Labour Market Segmentation in Egypt over 2012-2018: Youth Informal Employment is Prominent (Adrien Frontenaud).- Chapter 14. Dynamics of Wage Disparities in Senegal: Differences in Productive Characteristics or Discrimination? (Mamaye Thiongane).- Chapter 15. The Evolution of the Gender Pay Gap in Cameroon (Sabine Nadine Ekamena).- Chapter 16. Conclusion: Labour, a Highly Political Issue with Manifold Research Challenges (Eveline Baumann).

About the author

Michel-Pierre Chélini
, Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Economic History at the University of Artois (Arras), and Associate Professor at the Catholic Institute of Paris, specialises in the history of prices, inflation, wages and the impact of household purchases on the French, European and global economies since 1950. He has recently published a history of wages in France from the 1940s to the 1960s, entitled
Histoire des salaires en France 1944-1967
, Berne, Peter Lang, 2021. He is currently leading an international informal research programme (WAGE: Wage Analysis in a Globalising Environment), initially supported by the National Research Agency (ANR), on wages and globalisation since the 1950s/60s. In particular, he is preparing the edition of a book on
Wages and Globalization, Initial findings
(Peter Lang, 2026) and occasionally contributes to the French newspaper 
Le Monde
with opinion pieces on inflation and wages since 2022.

Eveline Baumann
, PhD, is a socio-economist, honorary research fellow at CESSMA (Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques, Université Paris Cité – IRD – Inalco). She has carried out field research in sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal, Mali, Cameroon) and the post-Soviet space (Georgia). Her main areas of interest concern labour, informal activities, small-scale fisheries, microfinance, and social protection. Her publications include
Sénégal. Le travail dans tous ses états
(Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2016) and, as a co-editor,
L’emploi à l’épreuve de ses marges
,
Revue française de socio-économie
(2016). https://www.cessma.org/BAUMANN-Eveline

Philippe Adair
, PhD in Economics and PhD in Sociology, is Emeritus Professor of Economics and an ERUDITE research fellow at University Paris-Est Créteil, France. He specialises in Labour Economics (i.e., the informal economy) and Financial Economics (i.e., small business funding including microfinance) in developing and developed countries. He records over one hundred publications. He is an Editorial Board member of
Mondes en Développement
(a ranked journal), a vice-president of
Association Tiers-Monde
and the Editor of the
Maghreb-Machrek
journal. References:
Philippe Adair at IDEASideas.repec.org/e/pad118.html‎.
Philippe Adair at
ResearchGatewww.researchgate.net/

Summary

This book addresses the long understudied topic of wage issues in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It offers an overview of wage issues in Africa, examines income inequalities, wages and causality, as well as wage determinants such as shocks, representations, and earning strategies. It also examines gender issues in the labour market.
The book consists of 14 chapters divided into four parts. It covers several countries from North Africa (Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) and Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Kenya, Mauritania and Senegal), with Cameroon and Senegal being covered twice. Statistical data before 1990-2000 are incomplete and the literature on the subject remains limited. While the African labour market shares similarities with other labour markets, it also has some unique characteristics. Only 27 per cent of workers are employees, two-thirds of whom work in the informal economy. Wage growth in Africa has been slow since the 1990s, with the exception of countries such as Botswana and Mauritius, where it has been particularly rapid. Looking at labour issues across such a wide range of countries proved to be a valuable asset. It confirmed, firstly, that there is a positive correlation between growth in wage employment and GDP and, secondly, that the boundary between formal and informal enterprises and jobs can shift towards more or less formality.

Product details

• Assisted by: Philippe Adair (Editor), Eveline Baumann (Editor), Michel-Pierre Chelini (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 26.10.2025, delayed
• EAN: 9783031997990
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3199799-0
• No. of pages: 309
• Illustrations: LV, 309 p. 32 illus., 22 illus. in color.
• Series: African Histories and Modernities
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Afrika, Politik und Staat, Internationale Wirtschaft, Internationales Management, gender gap, Economic history, auseinandersetzen, Industrial Relations, African History, African Politics, African Business, minimum wage, Collective bargaining, wage increase, employers unions, wage inequalities, long-run economic development, fair wage, employees unions, wage policies, standard of living