Sub-Saharan Employment Developments : The Important Role of Household Enterprises with an Application to Rwanda

This paper documents the structural transformation in employment that has taken place inSub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the past 15 years. In contrast to Asian economies, where atleast half of the labor flows out of agriculture have gone into industry, in SSA, most of theworkers have ended up in the service sector, especially household enterprises. Rwanda hasbeen one of the stellar performers in SSA in terms of structural transformation with thestrongest movement of workers out of agriculture. Contrary to conventional wisdom, exceptfor the very top of the distribution of consumption in Rwanda, families in householdenterprises now consume as much as non-agricultural wage earners.