Dissertation (MA Development Studies)
The purpose of this study was to assess private employers’ awareness on Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8). The goal that promotes sustainable and inclusive economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. This goal confirms the relationship that exists between decent work and well-being improvement. Specifically, the study focused on the assessment of private employers’ awareness on the SDG 8 and its implications for well-being improvement in Dodoma Capital City, Tanzania. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design. Purposive and random sampling techniques were employed to select the representative sample. Data collection methods comprised of surveys, key informants’ interviews, and documentary review with the private employers’ influenced by Autonomy and Decision Making Theory. A total of 100 individual private employers and employees were directly administered with questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics, such as Chi-squire was used to test for significance of data and regression analysis employed to assess the impact of private employers’ awareness of SDG 8 on well-being improvement. Generally, the findings show that overall, 53.3% of the employers are not aware of the labour right due to lack of enough knowledge on the SDG 8. This is correlated with the employers’ unawareness of the SDG 8 which has influence on the protection of labour rights. The regression estimates on the impact of employers’ awareness of SDG 8 on well-being improvement indicates that the knowledge awareness and work experience among the employers were statistically significant. This demonstrate that the wellbeing improvement are mostly contributed by factors such as employers and employee’s knowledge and awareness of SDG 8 and work experience. The study concludes that despite many progresses in the private sector, not all the workforce is enjoying decent work. In terms of policy, the study recommends an integrated approach that addresses the goals of well-being improvement, which requires employees’ knowledge awareness and inclusiveness in order to achieve SDG 8. That is the policy priorities for achieving many of the other SDGs depends on progress under the SDG 8.Finally, mobilizing the policy priorities, supporting knowledge access and skill building for SDG 8-related interventions is therefore, crucial for well-being improvement. The success of the SDG 8 depends largely on the initiatives of the public and private sectors.