International records / African Development Bank

2008 AEC - A comparison of rural wage employment in Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria with other developing countries

This paper explores rural wage employment and its potential as a mechanism for improving the well being of the rural population in three African countries: Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria. Using nationally representative household survey data, the paper compares the experiences of these three countries with 11 other developing countries from around the world. We find remarkable consistency between the rural labor markets in these 14 countries. We find that the sector of employment (agricultural or non-agricultural) and the overall household livelihood strategy appear to be of limited importance in d…