Social Protection in the Informal Sector; Evidence from Ghana’s Informal Sector

Abstract

Ghana’s economy is dominated by a large informal sector employing a significantly higher proportion of the total workforce. Studies have shown that majority of informal sector workers work under bad working conditions, and earn low remuneration culminating into high social insecurity especially during their old age. This paper sought to find out if government, institutional and market oriented failures deter rational individuals and households from participating in a pension scheme by examining the level of awareness among informal sector workers when it comes to the existing third tier pension scheme, and to investigate if informal sector workers employ other means of social protection. A sample of 300 informal sector workers participated in this study, and findings showed that majority of informal sector workers are not subscribed under the third-tier pension scheme, citing financial issues, institutional bottlenecks and awareness creation as major hindrances to getting cover under the pension scheme, and about 64% of the participants do not have any retirement plan and among those who claimed to have, majority see investments in their children as their retirement plan.