1. Point out the main differences in job conditions and worker characteristics b
ID: 1194093 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Point out the main differences in job conditions and worker characteristics between the urban formal and informal sectors.
2. Explain some important policy measures that you would expect to reduce excessive rural-urban migration.
3. Are developing country cities too large, too small, or about right in size? justify your answer with evidence from developing economies.
4. Explain what is meant by urban bias. what are the major effects of urban bias?
5. Describe some of the benefits and costs associated with the emergence of large cities in developing countries.
6. Describe some of the causes of urban giantism in developing countries.
Explanation / Answer
The informal sector is un-organised, both at employers' and workers' level. Formal-sector workers' organisations deplore the poor working conditions and low wages in the informal sector and recommend that in the framework of employment policy, measures should be taken which ensure a gradual transfer of enterprises from the informal to the formal sector.The formal sector is usually sub-divided in small, medium and large-scale enterprises. With the growing size of the enterprise, control by but also promotion through the government normally increases. Small-scale formal enterprises may face to some extent similar problems as the informal sector. However, the dividing line between the two consists in the fact that the latter is left more or less completely to itself whilst the former has easier access to assistance. Especially in urban areas, there exist links between the formal and the informal sector. In periods of economic difficulty when the formal sector is obliged to reduce manpower, this may be partly absorbed by the informal sector on a temporary or permanent basis. Skills acquired in the formal sector are thus put to use in the informal sector. Furthermore, the informal sector sometimes works under sub-contracts for the formal sector.
important policy measures are:
The trend toward ever greater urbanization is continuing unabated across the globe. According to the United Nations, by 2025 close to 5 billion people will live in urbanized areas. Many cities, especially in the developing world, are set to explode in size. The Nigerian city of Lagos, for example, is expected to increase its population by 50%, to nearly 16 million, in the next decade and a half (UNHabitat 2010). Naturally, there is an active debate on whether restricting the growth of mega-cities is desirable, and whether it can make residents of those cities and their countries better off. Importantly, this debate is not so much about urbanization per whether people should move to cities or stay in the countryside– but rather about whether (some) of the world’s mega-cities are creating mega-problems that could be avoided with suitable policies. People flock to cities in search of higher paying jobs and better amenities. Many of the world’s large metropolises, such as Los Angeles and Mumbai, are highly productive and are located next to large bodies of water. As cities grow in size, however, they start suffering from increased congestion, higher crime rates, and air pollution. How fast the benefits of efficiency and amenities erode with population size because of increasing congestion costs depends on the quality of governance, responsible for the provision of road infrastructure, sewage systems, clean water, and security. Cities obviously differ in their efficiency, their amenities and the quality of their governance, and so there is no one answer to what their optimal size should be. We need analytical tools that can help us evaluate the desirability of policies that hinder or promote the growth of cities of different sizes. This will allow us to assess urban policies that depend on the size of the cities where they are implemented, namely scale-dependent policies.
Urban bias is a structural condition of overurbanization and its growth leads to saturated urban labour market, truncated opportunity structures in rural areas, overburdened public services, distorted sectoral development in national economies, the isolation of large segments of the urban and rural population from the fruits of economic development, and retarded economic growth due to the high costs of urban development.Rural-Urban migration accounts for substantial proportion of growth in urban population Urban bias in the development strategy is a major cause of rural-urban migration and the increasing proportion of slum dwellers.
Causes of Urban Giantism
A form of urban bias that has often caused considerable harm might be termed first city bias. this means that the country's largest or first city receives a disproportionately large share of public investment and incentives for private investment, in relation to the country's second city and other smaller cities.Urban giantism probably results from combination of hub-and-spoke transportation system and the location of the political capital in the largest citythus combining the effects of the urban hierarchy model with the differentiated plane modelOne striking feature of the urbanization in developing countries is the presence of a large informal sector (unorganized, unregulated, unregistered). Between 30% to 70 % of urban labor force works in the informal sector.
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