2003a and b). Even city authorities have not researched earnings in the informal sector which means that contribution of street trade to local economic development is not appreciated and given appropriate attention (Mitullah, 2003a).
Nothing is more indicative of urban livelihood vulnerability than low levels of income earned in the informal sector. Income levels are determined by multiple factors. Poor working conditions and lack of supportive national and local policies and business development services are primary causes of low income levels (Lund, 1998). Low incomes are impacted by rising inflation, which makes it increasingly difficult to meet basic food needs (Little, 1999).
In Africa and India, income levels are determined by the size and scale of the business;
location of the business; taxes and type of goods sold (Unni, 2002; Mitullah, 2003a and 2004). Cultural expectations also influence daily income. Street traders aim to earn sufficient cash to meet particular daily needs. Once the monetary target is achieved, trading activities cease and the cash is immediately used to purchase basic household needs (Evers & Mehmet, 1994).
Income levels depend on the type of product the trader is selling and the socio-economic status of consumers. In Calcutta, petty traders who sold products with a short market life- span and traders who operated in middle class neighbourhoods made higher profits with greater opportunity for capital accumulation than those who operated in slums (Dasgupta, 1992b).
There are common trends in income levels. In 1995 in Johannesburg, 54 per cent of traders earned on average R600 a month whereas women earned on average, R200 a month (Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE), 1995). Only 16 per cent of the Self Employed Women‟s Union members earned more than R800 a month (Bedford, 1995). In South Africa between 1997 and 2001, 76 per cent of formal economy workers earned more than R1000 month, compared to 70 per cent of informal economy workers who earned less than R1000 a month (Devey et al., 2003). From 1997 to 2001 the
majority of informal economy workers (25.7 per cent) earned less than R500 a month (Devey et al., 2003).
The survivalist nature of informal activities was indicated between 1997 and 2001, where 21.3 per cent of informal sector workers earned R501-R1000 and 18.6 per cent earned R100-200 per month. In South Africa, gender and racial disparities were evident;
between 1997 and 2001 29 per cent of Africans earned R201-R500, 29.3 per cent of whites earned R2501-R4500 while women street traders earned R201-R500 a month (Devey et al., 2003).
Ghanaian street vendors earned up to $10. 79 and in Accra, income from street trading composed 20 per cent of total monthly income for women street traders while in Cocody Market in Cote d „Ivoire traders made a profit of $201.49 a month (Levin et al., 1999;
Mitullah, 2003a). Income levels vary according to types of goods sold and services offered. For example, in Sri Lanka, street food vendors earned a monthly average income of $290.23 and a profit of $133.50 compared to the urban monthly income of $217.91 and the national monthly household income of $121.37 (Bhowmik, 2005).
Differences in income are attributable to a tradition of eating out and the demand of poor urban people who prefer purchasing small amounts of food daily (McGee, 1979: 56;
Bhowmik, 2005). Food vendors earned higher incomes than other traders in Maputo in 1991. Processed food vendors, vendors selling cooked food and drinks earned the highest average incomes of $23.96 compared to traders selling general items who earned average incomes of less than $7.50 in 1991 (Little, 1999). In Calcutta, traders selling goods on commission earned higher incomes than other vendors and spent $1.85 (Rs75) on consumption per household member per month (Dasgupta, 1992a: 236 and Dasgupta, 1992b). Earning higher incomes was attributable to traders selling to higher income groups in middle class neighbourhoods (Dasgupta, 1992b). In India, services associated with traditional livelihoods such as carpentry, pottery, hairdressing and tailoring earned the lowest incomes because of low demand for these services (Unni, 2002).
Although income in the informal sector is lower than in the formal sector, women in developing countries earn less because they are more likely to be sub-contractors who earn the lowest in the informal sector (Chen, 2001). Earnings in India, like South Africa, Mozambique and Vietnam, depend on gender. In all these countries women earned less.
Indian women earned up to $0.49 less than Indian male traders (Bhowmik, 2005).
Vietnamese males earned more because they sold higher priced products compared to women who were more likely to sell food or household items (Bhowmik, 2005).
Indian women street traders‟ incomes were lower than males because they belonged to poor families that invested less capital in the enterprise and because they could not spend as much time on income generation due to child care responsibilities (Bhowmik, 2005).
In Maputo, Mozambique, male traders‟ incomes were double that of women because they had more capital to invest in profitable trading activities such as canteens (Little, 1999).
Similarly, in Gambia, average trading income per week for men was $180.12 compared to an average income per week for women of $78.47 in 1993 (Little, 1999).
Women dominated the unskilled sector of the informal economy in non-manufacturing activities in South Africa in 1998 (43.9 per cent) - most often in poorer survivalist activities. From 1997 to 2000, men dominated craft related occupations (35.25), followed by unskilled work (21.3 per cent) and skilled agriculture (11.8 per cent) (Lund, 1998;
Devey et al., 2003). South African women informal sector participants were usually forced into less profitable sectors as they lack business skills, education and access to credit and loan facilities to compete with male counterparts (Skinner & Valodia, 2003).
Street trading has been show to be a means of survival in South Africa, Cambodia and India (Lund, 1998; Devey et al., 2003; Bhowmik, 2005). A survey of The Self Employed Women‟s Union (SEWU) members in South Africa in 1995 showed that 75 per cent of street traders were sole breadwinners and 33 per cent of households had no other sources of income (Lund et al., 2000: 13). Street vendors were typically household heads and breadwinners (Lund, 1998). Households with informal economy workers had low incomes, and if a household had an informal economy worker, that worker was typically
the sole breadwinner (Devey et al., 2003). Women street traders in Cambodia were also typically breadwinners, an their husbands were mostly unemployed (Bhowmik, 2005).
Incomes of informal sector employees often fall below the poverty line. In Cambodia, street vendors‟ income fell below the national poverty line. Street traders earned just enough for food, clothing and shelter (Bhowmik, 2005). Similarly, in rural India, between 1999-2000, informal sector employees earned an average of $313 per annum, compared to the national poverty line of $420 per capita per annum (Unni, 2002). Conversely, Dasgupta (1992a: 228) argues that income from street trading kept many petty traders in Calcutta above the poverty line, granting access to basic household resources but were not sufficient to purchase items such as cycles and radios. Adding to the poverty debate of informal sector workers, Mitullah (2003b) argues that a significant percentage of Kenyan micro and small entrepreneurs live below the international poverty line of $1 per person per day (Mitullah, 2003b). Differences in income levels vary between rural and urban areas, between types of goods sold and within petty trading sectors.
Of all components of petty trading, street trading yielded the lowest average weekly income in Maputo (Little, 1999). Maputo street traders earned the lowest income in the informal sector (less than $7.50 per week in 1991) and were more vulnerable to poverty than others in the informal sector (Little, 1999). Although income derived from street- trading is very low, particularly women, engage in the sector to generate income that albeit minimal, is crucial to the survival of households (Mayrhofer & Hendriks, 2003).
For many rural and urban households, street trading is undertaken as a survivalist activity because it is the only alternative to destitution (Rogerson, 2000a). However, some lucrative petty trading sectors such as supplying fruits and vegetables to hotels, boost local and micro economies (Little, 1999). Little (1992) report that 96 per cent of hotel traders in Maputo purchased fresh produce from household gardens, 25 per cent from communal gardens, 46 per cent from markets, 46 per cent from export farms and eight per cent purchased from middlemen, creating important downstream linkages and
opportunities given low education and capital levels and remain trapped in unprofitable segments of the informal economy (Skinner, 2000b). The following section sheds more light on how education impacts on income levels of street traders.