Poverty and socio-professional status in Togo

To analyse poverty and socio-professional status in Togo, we started from the fact that whether a household head belongs to the public or private sector on the labour market can have different effects on the standard of living of this household. In addition, the marital status, gender and place of residence of the head of household can have a considerable influence on the standard of living of households. This was the subject of a study by Damien Mededji (2008) in neighbouring Benin where it was shown that these variables are significantly correlated with household poverty. To these already existing analyses, we added results from estimations using the simple Logit model in which we took into account the above-mentioned variables to determine their influence on the probability of being poor. Furthermore, we found that the Togolese administration is more centralized in the maritime region, mainly in Lomé. In fact, this region, like the public sector, is also experiencing a very large development of the private and informal sectors. In addition, there is also a very high concentration of graduates who are ready to accept the first job in the country.