There are significant and persistent gaps in the coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy of social protection in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (ILO, 2020).

Eleven years ago, Tunisia’s revolution brought about the promise of social solidarity and support for all citizens. In 2013, government, union and employer representatives signed a social contract highlighting social protection as a key area of focus. This led to the inclusion of rights to health and social assistance in the country’s 2014 constitution. With one of the most comprehensive social security and assistance systems in the MENA region, Tunisia has delivered on this promise to some of its citizens – yet a substantial portion of the workforce has been left behind in these efforts.

Informal workers face significant difficulty, and often exclusion, in accessing social security and medical insurance schemes that are not designed for them. They face significant differences in characteristics and situations, meaning that ‘one-size-fits-all’ policies will fail in the face of a diverse informal workforce.

The pandemic has demonstrated more than ever the importance of an inclusive and stable social protection system. Tunisian informal workers, like informal workers around the world, were disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Unlike workers in the public and private sector, Tunisian informal workers found themselves at the margin of the negotiations and efforts to support workers in the context of the pandemic. They were the first category of workers to be affected by the general lockdown measures.

An analysis of women informal workers conducted in 2021 found that 84% of surveyed lost income and 71% fell into debt due to Covid-19. Of those surveyed, 46% were forced to work continuously throughout the pandemic despite the associated health risks, while 19% were forced to cease their activities and lose all income due to local lockdown measures.

Additionally, these workers struggled to benefit from government relief. Instead of relying on government assistance, informal workers were far likelier to receive support from family members or local organisations and associations, although the majority ultimately received no assistance whatsoever (TILI, 2021).

Informal employment in Tunisia

The latest data on informal employment (National Institute of Statistics, 2019) indicate that the number of employed people has reached 3,566,400, of whom 1,598,700 (44.8%) work informally. Of these informal workers, 81.2% are men, with 49.5% of all employed men working informally, compared with 31.9% of all employed women. Just over half of informal workers are employees, 42.5% are either independent entrepreneurs or employers, and the remaining 6% are unpaid family workers.

The agriculture and fisheries sectors occupy the first ranks in informal employment, with more than 85% of the workers employed informally, followed by the construction and public works sector at 69.5%, and the trade sector at 66.2%. In total, these three sectors comprise two-thirds of Tunisia’s informal workers.

Factors affecting informality and the transition to formality

Using the Tunisian government’s 2015 Household Budget, Consumption and Living Standards Survey and the National Institute of Statistics’ Survey of Population and Employment for the second trimester of 2019, our research finds that the main factors affecting informality are type of work, educational attainment, region and workplace (El Mekkaoui et al, 2022).

These factors affect both women and men in a similar fashion. Marriage is a significant characteristic for men, with married men being 20% less likely than single men to work informally, whereas there is no significant difference in informal status between married and single women. Region also plays an important role in determining informality, with workers in region outside Tunis being associated with higher rates of informality than those in the nation’s capital region.

On the subject of the formalisation process, for those who have worked informally, characteristics such as increased age, living in urban areas and increased educational attainment are associated with a higher probability of transitioning to formality.

Policy perspectives

Extending a social insurance system to informal workers is a major challenge in terms of regulations, financing, registration of participants, incentives to contribute, and not increasing labour market distortions. But solutions do exist.

Tunisia has the opportunity to leverage existing regulations and introduce new policy strategies to increase social protection coverage among informal workers and create a more inclusive economy for Tunisian workers.

We find that workers who are illiterate and those employed in occasional, seasonal and part-time work are among the most likely to remain informal (El Mekkaoui et al, 2022). Based on this finding, developing universal coverage (as has been done in Ghana, Rwanda and Thailand, for example) or specific schemes for this category of workers (as in the Philippines) could be an important step towards expanding social protection coverage without fully overhauling current social protection systems.

Another key strategy for expanding social protection coverage is to reduce the cost of, and barriers to, making the transition to the formal economy using new technologies. New technologies can offer opportunities to extend social protection coverage to those excluded, to reduce management and administration costs, and to facilitate access to benefits and services through better identification of beneficiaries.

Similarly, taking action to dissociate access to social insurance programmes from employment contracts would reduce major barriers to coverage. Many informal workers do not earn regular wages, and therefore do not have incentives to sign up for a scheme that requires a quarterly contribution. With unstable or limited income, many informal workers struggle to pay this social contribution payment.

Additionally, legislation can provide a new fiscal, specific regulation and social regime that fits the needs of the majority of sectors that attract informal entrepreneurs (including the agriculture, fisheries, construction and trade sectors).The payment of the contribution under these schemes should be tied to workers’ incomes and the registration of the schemes must be conducted through a streamlined process that reduces complex existing barriers.

Due to the diversity of Tunisia’s informal economy, unions, cooperatives and other civil society organisations that have played a central role in providing and advocating for social protections should be involved in designing new policies and programmes to extend social protections.

Further reading

El Mekkaoui, Najat, Yeganeh Forouheshfar, Asma Benhassen, Nidhal Ben Cheikh and Jacob Emont (2022) ‘Social Security Coverage and Informal Workers in Tunisia’, ERF Working Paper No. 1576.

ILO, International Labour Organization (2020) ‘Social Protection Spotlight 2 Financing gaps in social protection: Global estimates and strategies for developing countries in light of the COVID-19 crisis and beyond’.

Nasri, Khaled, Mohamed Amara and Imane Helmy (2022) ‘The Landscape of Social Protection in Tunisia’, ERF Working Paper No. 1592.

National Institute of Statistics (2019) ‘INS Survey of Population and Employment for the 2nd trimester of 2019’. TILI, Tunisia Inclusive Labor Institute (2021) ‘COVID-19’s Impacts on Women Informal Workers in Tunisia’.