WORK FORCE

The economically active population  (EAP) is the series of people of working age, of both sexes, who form the labour available for the production of goods and services. In other words, the EAP consists of people who work (employed), and those actively seeking work (unemployed), including those seeking work for the first time.

According to international recommendations, the EAP is regarded as the population that participates in economic activity and is aged 15 and above. The analysis of the EAP presented in this section has followed this recommendation. However, the census form was designed to capture people aged between 7 and 14 years. The participation of this latter group in work is analysed in a separate table.

In the IIRGPH, the EAP was measured through a question about the activity undertaken by people in the week prior to the census date. Thus, as Table 7.1 shows, the size of the EAP in Mozambique is 5.9 million people. This number is 69.7% of the population aged 15 and above. There is greater male than female participation: 73.5% against 66.5%. Of the people who form part of the EAP, 92.1% worked during the reference week. Outside of the EAP are 2.4 million people aged 15 and above, which is 28.2% of this population. Of the people outside of the EAP, 39.3% are men and 60.7% are women (these latter percentages are not presented in Table 7.1). The greater part of the inactive population, among both men and women, is formed by domestics.

The level of economic participation in rural areas is higher than in urban ones, due, in part, to greater female participation, which, as will be shown below, is largely related to the sector of  agriculture. Thus, 76.5% of the population aged 15 and above forms part of the EAP in the rural areas, against 54.0% in the urban areas.

Table 7.2 and Graph 7.1 show the specific rates of participation in economic activity. These rates are the ratio between the active population in a particular sex and age group and the total population of this same sex and age group (multiplied by 100). They reflect the entry and exit of people from the work force, according to age. In the case of Mozambique, in the urban areas, male participation is higher than female in all age groups. In the rural sector overall male participation is also greater than that of women, except in

TABLE7.1: Percentage distribution of the population aged 15 and above by area of residence and sex, according to activity in the reference week, Mozambique, 1997

TABLE 7.2: Specific rates of activity by area of residence and sex, according to age, Mozambique, 1997

the 15-19 year age group. The difference between the rates of male and female participation is lower in the rural sector than in the urban one. It is important to note that the four curves show that the rates are beginning to decline significantly as from 60 years. However. in the rural areas this decline is slower, showing that a greater proportion of people continue to work at a more advanced age. The reason seems to be the lack of pensions in the rural areas. In the latter, there is also a greater participation of elderly people in activities linked to production, particularly food production for household consumption (work on the fields and breeding livestock).

Table 7.3 shows the rate of participation of the population aged 7 to 14 years. This table shows an important level of child participation in economic activities: 28.0% of children between 7 e 14 years of age are working. The rates increase with age: they are also higher for boys at younger ages, but as from the age of 12 they are higher for girls. In the urban areas, children’s participation in work is relatively low: 8.7%. In the rural areas, the participation is much higher: 37.1% of children aged between 7 and 14 are working. The truth is that the high level of participation in the country as a whole is caused mainly by the high rates of rural participation. In most Third World countries, children’s participation in work is greater in the rural sector than in the urban. This is linked to lower school attendance in the rural areas. In the countryside, households have fewer resources than in towns to send and keep their children in the education system, there are fewer schools, and, above all, children’s work is regarded as more important than their education for the welfare of the household. This latter aspect is particularly clear in contexts where subsistence agriculture is dominant

TABLE 7.3: Specific rates of activity by area of residence and sex corresponding to the population aged from 7 to 14, Mozambique, 1997