The Role of Work in Society
Senior 1 · Entrepreneurship
The Role of Work in Society
Lesson 1 of 4
25 min
Stand at the entrance of Kimironko market in Kigali early on a weekday and count the people working. A woman arranges tomatoes on her stall: she owns the stall and keeps what she earns. A porter carries sacks of rice from a lorry and is paid for each sack. A cleaner employed by a company sweeps the walkways for a monthly wage. A clerk at the bank branch nearby opens the doors. At home, a mother of one of the traders is cooking and caring for three grandchildren, and no one pays her at all.
Think about it: Are all of these people working? Which of them are paid, and how?
All of these people are working. Work is not defined by pay: it is defined by effort that produces something useful. The grandmother's cooking feeds a family just as surely as the trader's stall does.
Definition
Work: physical or mental effort used to produce goods or provide services that are useful to people, whether or not it is paid.
Example: sweeping a market, carrying sacks, cooking for a family, teaching a class.
Definition
Employment: work done for another person or organisation, the employer, in return for pay under an agreement.
Example: the cleaner employed by a company that looks after the market.
Definition
Self-employment: working for yourself in your own business, so that your income is the profit the business makes.
Example: the woman who owns the tomato stall.
Definition
Income: money a person receives over a period of time, from work (wages, salary or profit) or from other sources such as rent or gifts.
Example: the stall owner's profit for the week is her income from work.
| Type of work | What it means | Example in Rwanda |
|---|---|---|
| Paid work | Work done for money | A mechanic repairing a car in Gikondo |
| Unpaid work | Useful work done without payment | Fetching water for the family; umuganda |
| Manual work | Work done mainly with the hands and body | Bricklaying, farming, carrying loads |
| Non-manual work | Work done mainly with the mind, often in an office | Accounting, teaching, computer programming |
| Formal work | Registered work with a contract, taxes and rules on pay and safety | A nurse at a district hospital |
| Informal work | Unregistered work, often without a contract or fixed pay | A street vendor selling roasted maize |
| Seasonal work | Work available only at certain times of year | Picking coffee cherries from March to May |
Umuganda, the community work that takes place across Rwanda on the last Saturday of every month from 8:00 to 11:00, is a well-known form of unpaid community work.
Warning
Unpaid does not mean worthless. A common mistake is to say that a person who cooks, fetches water or cares for children "does not work". If the family had to pay someone else to do it, it would cost money, so it clearly has value.
People who work for themselves must pay the costs of their work before they can count what they earned:
Worked example
A moto driver's day (illustrative figures)
Byiringiro rents a motorbike for Frw 5,000 a day. Today he makes 25 trips at an average fare of Frw 600 and buys Frw 4,000 of fuel.
Step 1: earnings.
Step 2: costs.
Step 3: net income.
Step 4: a week of 6 such days.
His net income is Frw 6,000 a day, or Frw 36,000 for the week, not the Frw 15,000 a day that passengers hand him.
Definition
Wage: pay for work, usually calculated per hour, per day or per piece of work done, so it changes with the amount of work.
Example: a porter paid Frw 300 for each sack he carries.
Definition
Salary: a fixed amount of pay for a month or a year, which does not change with the hours worked in a particular week.
Example: a bank clerk paid the same amount at the end of every month.
Worked example
Wage or salary? (illustrative figures)
A porter is paid Frw 300 for each sack. On a busy day he carries 40 sacks: , so he earns Frw 12,000. On a quiet day with 15 sacks he earns only . His wage rises and falls with the work.
A bank clerk earns a salary of Frw 300,000 a month, busy or quiet. In a year: , so Frw 3,600,000.
Worked example
Putting a value on unpaid work (illustrative figures)
Mutesi fetches 4 jerrycans of water every day for her family. A water seller in her area charges Frw 50 a jerrycan.
In a 30-day month, Mutesi's unpaid work saves her family Frw 6,000.
Tip
The replacement test: if you are unsure whether something is work, ask "Could someone be paid to do this for me?" If yes, it is work, paid or not.
DW, "Riding in Rwanda: Motorcycle Taxi Driver in Kigali" (DW REV, 2021, 3 minutes). Emmanuel is buying his motorbike by paying its owner every day for a year. Watch for his daily costs and the risks of the job, and decide whether he is employed or self-employed.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the Kimironko case, the tree diagram, the table, the worked examples, the activity and the practice items. Pay and prices are illustrative (2026).
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
