Benin
Benin has recently managed to achieve real growth
in its GDP, bouncing back from a decade-long period of unprecedented economic
crisis in the 1980s. In fact, GDP growth has modestly outpaced growth
in population. Yet a closer look at Benin's economy, its volume of long-term
job creation, and national poverty rates suggest that Benin’s model
of economic growth is not capable of generating a sustainable reduction
in unemployment or poverty. Benin's economy is built on diminished prospects
for international competitiveness, weak internal demand, depressed domestic
capacity, low productivity, and low household income. Structural adjustment
programs were conceived to establish macroeconomic balance and revitalize
economic growth, but these programs have instead contributed to increasing
unemployment and poverty, both in urban and rural areas. Reforms in the
public and parastatal sectors were accompanied by massive layoffs and
a reduction of the public-sector workforce. Cuts in the government budget
were realized through drastic reductions in social spending (education
and health), in public investment, and in those sectors that typically
generated the greatest demand in the domestic market. Cuts in public and
parastatal employment not only reduced opportunities for permanent employment
in the formal urban economy, they also contributed to the decline in rural
wages and the increase of wages in the "informal" economy.
- To read a detailed labor
market analysis for Benin, download one of the following:
Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] [size 45 kb]
Microsoft Word [.doc] [size 90 kb]
Source:
CORCEDO—
Centre d’Orientation
de Recherche en Compétitivité,Economie et Décisions
Organisationnelles
Institut National d’Economie (National Economic Institute)
P O Box 03 107 Contonou, Benin
Tel : 229 30 41 69 - 229 91 06 08
Email : gbalaro@yahoo.fr
Data posted: July 9, 2001.
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