Occupational choice is strongly tied to the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap in the region appears to be heterogonous, but several studies have shed light on the source of the gender wage gap. In a study of 7 West African cities, Nordman et al. (2009) found that women earned 50 percent to 79 percent as much as men, and 39 to 61 percent of this gap was explained by occupation and sector (public, private formal, informal). The study emphasizes the importance of within-sector gender wage gaps. A study from Madagascar showed that informal employment was associated with a larger raw gender wage gap than formal employment. Women in Madagascar, unlike men, are penalized for working in informal wage employment, even after controlling for unobservable individual characteristics (Nordman et al., 2012). Finally, Nordman & Wolff (2009) used matched employer-employee data from Mauritius and Madagascar<sup>15</sup> to demonstrate that the gender wage gap is attenuated when firm effects are considered. This suggests that men are more likely to be hired into firms paying higher wages than women.

Evidence suggests that informational asymmetries, a lack of role models, social norms, and discrimination all contribute to this pattern of segregation (Hicks et al., 2015; Campos et al., 2015; Alibhai et al., 2015; Beaman et al., 2012; Beaman et al., 2013). Qualitative work led by GIL in Uganda (Campos et al., 2015) and Ethiopia (Alibhai et al., 2015) explored the determinants of female engagement in male-dominated trades, confirming that information was indeed a constraint: women in female-dominated trades were frequently mistaken regarding the earnings of women in male-dominated trades. The studies also found that a significant factor in women entering male-dominated trades was the presence and encouragement of male role models early in a young woman’s career, indicating that information is not enough to overcome occupational segregation. Without information and support, young women often opt for the types of work they see other women doing, even if it is not as profitable as other available opportunities. Vocational training, livelihoods projects, and apprenticeships often reinforce these social norms by offering training in stereotypically female (and low-return) trades such as arts and crafts, tailoring, and beauty salons (Fox et al., 2011). The continued demand from young women for these types of training indicates that overcoming these gender norms requires specialized interventions. Further research is needed to understand the relative importance of information, role models, and preferences as underlying drivers of occupational segregation.

# **2.6. Safety and Mobility**

The labor market participation of youth is additionally constrained by concerns about safety and mobility. Unsafe working conditions result from a lack of occupational safety and health laws, and weak enforcement of these laws, particularly for workers in the informal sector, who are usually not covered by existing labor protections. Street vendors and hawkers, for example, are vulnerable to eviction from the locations from which they operate and capricious enforcement of laws regarding licensing and taxation of informal enterprises (Filmer and Fox, 2014). We would hypothesize that youth are more vulnerable to this type of harassment by their concentration in vulnerable employment, limited knowledge of their rights, their relative inexperience in dealing with authorities, as well as the power inequities associated with being young. However, little data are available on harassment.

> 15 Data from Mauritius is confined to the manufacturing sector while data from Madagascar is from 14 different sectors.

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