“Invisible frontline”: informal workers and pandemic inequalities in Ghanaian cities

The recent question – “After COVID-19, is the world ready for the next pandemic?” – posed by the World Health Organization is a reminder of the structural inequalities that shaped the uneven impact of the last pandemic. This article examines the lived experiences of informal workers – head porters and truck pushers – in Ghanaian markets during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the structural, gendered, and classed dimensions of their vulnerability. It draws on qualitative interviews in Accra and Kumasi as well as the concept of the invisible frontline to explain how informal workers – essential to urban survival – were excluded from recognition, protection, and support. The framework identifies four intersecting dimensions of invisibility: economic, legal, spatial, and cultural-relational. The study shows how these dimensions produced economic precarity, uneven access to relief, spatial displacement, and increased social stigma, while also revealing workers’ coping strategies and aspirations for mobility. The findings further show that these burdens were gendered, with female head porters facing heightened income insecurity and caregiving pressures during lockdown. The article argues for inclusive urban governance, urban resilience, and social protection frameworks that recognize the differentiated risks and contributions of informal workers.