In Cité Ettadhamen, Mongi, 51, and Dalila, 46, are raising four children with professional incomes estimated at 600 dinars per month, excluding social assistance received irregularly.
Both of them work when opportunities arise, but not every day. Between a rent of 270 dinars, meals pared down to essentials, and 480 dinars of debts at the grocer, daily life has become a balancing act. Their eldest son, aged 17, has left school.
Two working parents, without a guaranteed salary
Mongi works on construction and earthworks sites. At 51, he does not have permanent employment: paid days alternate with periods without work. His monthly income is estimated at 400 dinars.
Dalila, 46, performs on-demand cleaning and occasionally participates in olive picking. She does not work every day either. Her activities bring in about 200 dinars per month.
With their four children aged 17, 14, 10 and 6, they live in an old one-bedroom-and-sitting-room dwelling, poorly ventilated, in Cité Ettadhamen, on the outskirts of Greater Tunis.
The rent of 270 dinars gobbles up 45 % of their estimated professional income. They have 330 dinars left even before paying for food purchases, bills and medicines.
In the diet, almost always the same products
The family dedicates 250 dinars per month to food and small domestic expenses. Spread over thirty days, this budget represents about 8.33 dinars per day for six people, and it is not only used to buy food.
