The feminization and informalization of labour - 447Kb ~ 2 ... - SARPN

Section 2Women, work andsocial policyDOGON WOMENLISTEN TO THE RADIOAS THEY WORK.DOUENTZA, MALI

Chapter 5The feminization andinformalization of labourOver the past three decades women’s economic activity rateshave been rising in most parts of the world, as was shown infigure 1.2 and is shown in figure 5.1. There are exceptions tothis general global trend, notably in the transitional economieswhich are part of Eastern Europe as well as Central and WesternAsia where there have been notable reversals, and in the MiddleEast and North Africa (MENA) where they remain verylow. 1 But the general trend is towards increasing female visibilityin the economic domain, and in some countries women’sactivity rates are nearing men’s. What does the apparent convergencein male and female economic activity rates actuallymean? Does it signify the disappearance of gender from thelabour market? In other words, is being a man, or a woman, nolonger a significant attribute as far as one’s entry into the labourforce, pattern of employment, labour market status, and accessto pay and welfare benefits are concerned? Another questionthat arises from the increase in female labour force participationis whether this has had an equalizing affect on the genderdivision of unpaid domestic and care work.The evidence explored in chapter 3 suggests that, whilethere have been important changes in women’s work patterns—notablythe increase in work for pay—labour marketscontinue to be segmented by gender, as well as by factors suchas race, caste and ethnicity which intersect with gender. Labourmarket segmentation does not disappear with modernizationand growth, as the experience in the Organization for EconomicCo-operation and Development (OECD) countries clearly illustrates.As labour markets restructure and modernize, there areinvariably both changes and continuities. However, the recentintensification of women’s paid work has been paralleled byprocesses of deregulation in the conditions of work, as well asoutsourcing and fragmentation of international supply chains.The first key issue concerning women’s participation in thelabour market is the way in which their employment has toaccommodate their paramount role in the unpaid domestic andcare economy. Even in industrialized countries where this typeof work is shifting to institutions other than the family, the paidcare undertaken in hospitals, crèches and homes for the elderlyis a small part of all care work done in a society. The fact that thiswork is almost exclusively performed by women has repercussionsfor female employment; it tends to penalize working womenand is key to their weak position in terms of earnings and occupationalstatus. 2 Although many regard caring as a fulfillingoccupation, in households where incomes are low and amenitiesfew, women’s caring load can be disproportionately highand, where it includes food and utility provision, costly. Policyconcerns therefore include the need not only for more and betterwork opportunities for women, but to ease their domesticand care burden through better provision of basic services, andto encourage a fairer male–female distribution of unpaid work.However, even when women are included in the labourmarket, women and men tend to be segregated into differentoccupations (what is often referred to as horizontal segregation).Women are also more likely than men to be in occupationswith lower pay, poorer working conditions, and worseprospects for advancement (vertical segregation). This is one ofthe main reasons why labour market segregation is so pernicious.Authoritative research finds that, despite some improvementsPAGE 67

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DFigure 5.1 Female economic activity ratesin the Middle East and NorthAfrica and transitional countries(1980–latest available year)MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAAlgeriaBahrainEgyptIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqJordanKuwaitLybian Arab JamahiriyaMoroccoOccupied Palestinian TerritoriesOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaSyrian Arab RepublicTunisiaUnited Arab EmiratesYemenTRANSITIONALAlbaniaArmeniaAzerbaijanBelarusBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCroatiaEstoniaGeorgiaHungaryKazakhstanKyrgyzstanLatviaLithuaniaMacedonia, TFYRPolandRepublic of MoldovaRomaniaRussian FederationSlovakiaSloveniaTajikistanTurkmenistanUkraineUzbekistanSource: ILO 2003.Percentage0 20 40 60 801980 Latest available year (1995-2003)in the 1990s, levels of gender segregation in the labour marketremain high throughout the world. 3 Women tend to congregatein relatively low-paid and low-status work at the bottomof the occupational hierarchy, and also to have little job security.Reducing gender segregation requires proactive state interventionin areas such as special training for women and antidiscriminationlegislation; as well as the promotion of womenemployees’ needs and rights within authoritative workers’ organizationscapable of demanding accountability from governmentsand employers.The final gender considerations related to women’s workforceparticipation and earning are the potential repercussionson their personal relations at work and at home. Earning moneyin any amount for the first time may not alter certain characteristicsof gender subordination, such as women’s dependenceon male protection; but it may reduce their dependence onmale provision, and enhance their economic security and sayin household decisions. For younger women it could meangreater mobility, the chance to postpone marriage, and a bit ofdiscretionary income. Their new-found value can also affect howwomen are treated, as well as their feelings of self-worth. 4 Thesegains notwithstanding, there are reasons for caution in equatingwomen’s paid work with empowerment. As already noted, womenmay find their total workload increasing without any change incare responsibilities. There are also instances where men reducetheir contribution to the household budget, especially in placeswhere it is common for fathers not to live with their children,as in South Africa and some parts of the Caribbean. 5NORTH AND SOUTH:CONVERGINGAND COMPETING?The global economy, as pointed out in Chapter 2, is operatingsubstantially below capacity and levels of unemployment arebecoming more severe. Unemployment rates in most OECDcountries are very high, as is open unemployment in developingcountries. This marks a change: typically, developingcountries have had lower open unemployment rates while disguisedunemployment or underemployment has generally beenmore prevalent. The change therefore suggests that the problemof finding jobs has become so acute that it is now capturedin such data.Another common pattern is the global trend whereby workis becoming increasingly informal and casual, although theextent of convergence between patterns in North and SouthPAGE 68

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U Rshould not be exaggerated. The “informal economy” includesboth self-employment in small and unregistered enterprises,and wage employment without secure contracts, benefits orlegal protection; this economy is growing in importance worldwide,both in its proportion of total employment and in thenumber of informal enterprises. 6 Even in developed economies,fewer workers have secure contracts, and many in formalemployment are losing work-related social benefits, such as healthinsurance and pension provision. 7 In much of sub-SaharanAfrica and South Asia, and in such Latin American countriesas Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico, only a fraction of theworkforce has ever been engaged in formal employment. But incountries such as Argentina and Chile whose labour markets hadcome to resemble those of the industrialized world, factorieshave closed, public sector employment has been cut, real wageshave fallen, and increasing numbers of households have becomedependent on the informal and unregulated economy. 8This trend was unforeseen. In the 1960s and 1970s, it wasassumed that the worldwide development of the modern economywould shrink and absorb informal activity, as had happenedhistorically in the industrialized countries. The subsequentextensive growth of the informal economy has reversed suchexpectations; instead, the global economy has shown a tendencyto encourage precarious forms of work which do notbring in sufficient earnings to meet subsistence. In spite ofthis deepening phenomenon, work and employment currentlyreceive relatively little attention internationally, except,importantly, from the International Labour Organization(ILO); this is even the case within the poverty reduction agendaof the last decade. Indeed, employment hardly features inthe Millennium Development Goals.Finally, while the effects of global integration on workers inthe South have been regarded, by trade economists at least, aspositive for developing countries, the available evidence is ambiguous.9 For the vast majority of developing countries, manufacturingemployment has actually stagnated or declined over the pastdecade, while the growth in manufacturing activities and employmenthas been confined to a handful of countries: China, Malaysia,Indonesia, Thailand and Chile. The rapid surge in imports associatedwith trade liberalization is responsible for manufacturing’spoor performance elsewhere, as cheap, newly deregulatedimported goods have displaced those made by small-scale,employment-intensive domestic producers unable to compete ininternational markets. Job losses from import competition havebeen significant in some developing countries, and has not becompensated for by the opening up of export employment. 10Some advocates of trade liberalization argue that women inthe South have emerged as winners in the new manufacturingemployment scenario. But the picture is not straightforward.Wherever export-oriented manufacturing industries havegrown (including in China, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Mexico andThailand), women have been disproportionately absorbed intotheir workforces. And even though the working conditions andterms of pay in many of these factories are poor by internationalstandards, they are usually better than in the urban and rural informaleconomy. However, these positive considerations concerningexpanding female employment opportunities need to be qualified.In the first place, as chapter 3 has shown, as these industrieshave upgraded, matured, and needed a higher skilled workforce,there has been a widespread defeminization of labour. 11There has also been a strong tendency in industries with a largelyfemale workforce, especially garment manufacturing, towardsderegulation and subcontracting; this often leads to the extensiveuse of homeworkers, one of the most invisible groups in theinformal economy (see below). Finally, jobs that are destroyedas a result of import liberalization are not only those occupiedby the male “labour aristocracy” in state-owned or state-protectedindustries, but include jobs held by women. These maybe in the state-owned sector as in China, or informal forms ofwork in small-scale and labour-intensive local enterprises. 12WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENTIN OECD COUNTRIES:CONTINUITY AND CHANGE 13In the OECD countries, women’s labour force participation hasbeen rising as industrialization and urbanization have drawnwomen into the formal workforce, albeit unevenly across countries.14 In some, women’s employment rates are nearing men’s.PAGE 69

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DFigure 5.2 Part-time employment rates in OECD countries, as percentageof total employment (2001)Percentage0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70NetherlandsAustraliaJapanSwitzerlandUnited Kingdom (1)New ZealandIcelandNorwayIrelandCanadaSwedenBelgiumGermany (1)DenmarkFranceLuxembourgUnited StatesAustriaItalyFinlandPortugalTurkeySpainGreeceAll Male FemaleNote: (1) Data for 2000.Source: ILO 2003.Women are also being drawn into the informal economy wherethis kind of activity is significant, most notably in southernEurope. The trend of going to work is most noticeable amongmothers with young children, the group most likely to dropout of employment in the post-Second World War period.However, workforce participation rates are crude indicators ofworking women’s situations. They reveal nothing about theintensity of men’s and women’s employment (part-time versusfull-time), their relative contribution to paid and unpaid work,or about different patterns of lifetime participation. Thesefactors complicate the picture.First, women are under pressure to limit their paid economicactivity. In all these countries caring and household workremains predominantly with women, many of whom subordinateemployment to family responsibilities. In many countries, someof the care burden of children, the sick and the elderly is shiftingto institutions other than the family, but women still haveto shoulder a time-consuming household load. Thus many workPAGE 70

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U Rpart-time or drop out of the labour force altogether at far higherrates than men. Even in the Nordic countries where levels offormal participation are highest, many mothers of young childrentechnically in the labour force are actually on parental leave; fewmen take up their parental leave entitlements. Moreover, wherecare work is bought in—nannies, nurses, cleaners, minders—it isusually done by women, often from racial or ethnic minorities(see chapter 7). It is invariably underpaid relative to “male”occupations involving similar levels of competence.Thus the gender division of labour is not disappearing, butmodernizing, as women enter the labour force and stay in employmentfor greater portions of their lives. It is now sometimesargued that gender difference is increasingly based on time,with men working full-time and women working part-time (seefigure 5.2). This has replaced the older gender distinction betweenmen’s participation in paid work and women’s full-time domesticityand absence from the labour market. There is variationin the quality of the work women engage in between countries,as well as in the mix of paid and unpaid work, but the basic patternis the same: men “specialize” in paid work while doing littleat home; women do the bulk of unpaid work, increasingly incombination with employment. There are different views overwhether women work more hours overall. The evidence suggeststhat certain groups of women are hard-pressed, for exampleemployed mothers who work a “second shift” at home. 15According to recent ILO estimates, three categories ofnon-standard or atypical work comprise 30 per cent of overallemployment in 15 European countries, and 25 per cent of totalemployment in the United States: self-employment, part-timework (in which women predominate), and temporary work. 16This cannot be equated with informal work in developingcountries; some of it takes place under contract and falls underthe scope of labour legislation. Work of this kind may be adeliberate choice by male and female workers with resources,skills and other options. Part-time and temporary workers areoften employed by regular firms and institutions. Nevertheless,atypical workers have fewer protections and benefits than fulltimeemployees, although there are differences between countries.Part-time workers are more likely to be eligible for benefitsin Europe than in North America or Japan. 17There is also a rising trend of irregular, informal and hiddenemployment in many industrialized countries. This kindof work is usually undertaken by immigrant women andmen, many of whom are undocumented (see chapter 7). It istherefore extremely difficult to obtain reliable figures concerningits extent or the situation of women as opposed to menemployees.Finally, it is important to underline the fact that there is stilla substantial earnings gap between men and women in OECDcountries, despite an EU policy mindset which assumes thatwomen, like men, work full-time and are financially independent.18 This is partly because so many women work part-time;but there are also earnings gaps among full-time workers, astable 5.1 clearly shows. These reflect occupational segregationand the fact that “women’s jobs” earn lower wages. Interestingly,younger women seem to have much higher relative earnings,which may indicate progress over time toward gender parity.But it may also reflect the fact that the youngest cohorts havenot yet entered the prime childrearing years, when women areunder greater pressure to scale back on employment in waysthat often result in lower pay.WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENTIN EASTERN ANDCENTRAL EUROPE:CRISIS AND DECLINEThe situation with regard to female employment in the formerlycentralized command economies of Eastern and Central Europehas undergone more radical shifts, and some reversals. Prior to1989, these countries had achieved remarkably high rates offemale labour-force participation, despite gender segregation ofjobs, modest gender wage gaps, and an unchanged distributionof household responsibilities. After the socialist regimes collapsedand economies were liberalized, there was a radical andalarming decline in employment and activity rates for bothmen and women. During the course of economic transformation,around one-third of all jobs were lost, leading to widespreadunemployment. At the same time, state welfare systemsPAGE 71

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DTable 5.1Women’s average annual income/earnings as a percentage of men’s,by age groups for full-time, full-year workers in the mid to late 1990sTotal 15+ 15–24 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65+Austria 74.9 88.1 80.6 73.4 73.4 65.7 53.0Canada 73.1 82.5 78.2 74.8 69.9 62.4 –Denmark 82.8 – – – – – –Finland 77.6 79.5 81.7 74.5 74.7 75.4 –Ireland 65.0 – – – – – –Italy 81.2 93.9 88.9 79.7 80.2 80.2 67.8Netherlands 71.2 88.6 86.6 84.1 75.5 77.6 –Norway (1) 71.2 85.1 71.6 73.4 67.7 79.2 –Spain 77.9 77.9 85.9 82.1 73.8 63.9 34.4Sweden 78.7 84.2 80.2 77.4 76.4 76.6 –Switzerland (2) 76.4 95.1 87.2 80.9 69.6 72.3 –United Kingdom (3) 73.8 – – – – – –United States (2) 68.0 87.2 81.1 69.6 63.5 53.5 54.8Notes (1) Youngest age group is 16–24.(2) Median annual income.(3) Average weekly earnings; figure refers to Great Britain.Source: Orloff 2002.were dismantled. As the real value of wages declined, socialbenefits were being reduced, pensions lost their value, inequalitiesincreased, and poverty became visible and deepened.Complicating the economic and social crisis, an ideologicalbacklash ensued against the kind of “emancipation” fostered byregimes of the communist era, with worrying implications forgender equality prospects.In this turbulent and traditionalist-resurgent context,questions were raised about women’s ability to maintain theirpresence in the public sphere. By the early 1990s there hadalready been reversals in women’s labour-force participation.Women were facing new—or perhaps old but previously disguised—formsof discrimination and higher rates of unemploymentthan men, while benefits for employed mothers werebeing cut. 19 Were these apprehensions of women’s loss of holdin the labour market borne out by subsequent developments?Apart from Slovenia, the three countries in the regionexhibiting the highest level of economic prosperity, the moststreamlined progress towards liberal democracy, and the quickesttransition into the EU are the Czech Republic, Hungaryand Poland. However, concern has been expressed about the“male democracies” taking shape in the region, maybe preciselybecause of their rapid integration into the globalizingworld. 20Employment and activity rates for both men and womendeclined sharply after 1990 and are very low in two of the threecountries (Poland and Hungary) (see table 5.2). Czech womenhave had most success in staying economically active, probablybecause employment retrenchment in the Czech Republic wasgenerally milder than in the other two countries. 21 Polishwomen, with a higher rate of inactivity in 1989 than women inthe other countries, were less likely to be employed or active in2001. The low levels of economic activity in Hungary are particularlyworrying, especially as far as women with lower qualificationsare concerned (see box 5.1). In addition to the massdisappearance of jobs in the early 1990s, high rates of inactivityhave been attributed to the legacy of an early retirement age,and generous maternity/parental leave policies which encouragedmothers (but not fathers) to leave work. Women’s activityrates are well below the EU average (60 per cent), or even thePAGE 72

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G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DBox 5.1Women outside the labour market in HungaryThe rate of economic inactivity in Hungary is high and on the rise. From 1.5 million women aged 15–64 in 1999, the numberhad gone up to 1.7 million in 2001, from 41 to 48 per cent of the age group. (The corresponding rates for men were 23 percent in 1999 and 34 per cent in 2001.) All age groups are represented, and the majority have very low qualifications. Thedeclared reasons for women not to be working include seeking education (27 per cent), undertaking childcare (21 per cent),and taking early retirement (27 per cent); a quarter give no reason. In 2002, other than those in education or near retirement,the great majority said that they would like to work—far more than the number of active job-seekers. Re-entry into the formallabour market is not easy however, as many companies have been liquidated and former employers are not able to taketheir ex-employees back. Return is particularly difficult for those who have spent a long spell outside the labour market. Fewpeople can afford to pay for childcare, care for the sick or elderly, or domestic help. Meanwhile most households need a secondearner. So those women who are able, undertake a variety of casual work—gardening, taking care of children or olderpeople, cleaning—in their vicinity for a few hours a day or week, bypassing the formal economy. Those engaging in suchwork are poor, live on a pension or childcare assistance, and so grasp any opportunity they can. The rate of pay has little to dowith the official minimum wage. The segmentation of the labour market in Hungary is deep, with few passagewaysbetween the unrecognized informal economy and the formal workplace.Source: Laky 2004.MIDDLE EAST ANDNORTH AFRICA: STALLEDINDUSTRIALIZATIONAND DIVERSIFICATIONAlthough the MENA region is often studied as an integratedwhole (due to certain shared cultural, religious and historical characteristics,and the prevalence of oil economies), it includes threedistinct types of economy: the oil economies (such as Kuwait andSaudi Arabia); the mixed oil economies (such as Algeria, IslamicRepublic of Iran, Iraq and Tunisia); and the non-oil economies(such as Jordan, Morocco and Turkey). Women’s labour-forceparticipation and access to paid employment in the region arelower than those reported for other developing regions, althoughthey have been rising in recent years (see figure 5.1).As part of state-directed industrialization during the 1970sand 1980s, the formal sector in most countries in MENA waslargely made up of government agencies and state-owned enterprises.High wages and generous social policies for employeeswere made possible by state oil revenues, and by the capital andlabour flows between countries (for example, remittances ofworkers from non-oil countries working in the oil or mixed-oileconomy countries). At the same time, income taxes wereamong the lowest in the world. A detailed comparative studyof wage trends has established that the wages of manufacturingworkers were higher in most of these countries than in Asiancountries such as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and thePhilippines. 24The political economy of oil, however, was a mixed blessing.It weakened accountability mechanisms between the citizens andthe state, allowing authoritarian states to dominate the economyand society. There were also important implications as far asemployment opportunities and lack of economic diversificationwere concerned. High wages for male workers, large-scale malemigration from the non-oil countries to the oil-rich countries,remittances sent back by (male) migrant workers, and the culturaland legal sanction given to the “male breadwinner” ideal,all served to suppress women’s employment. In some laboursendingcountries, labour shortages led to a new dependence ofthe agricultural sector on women workers. But overall, theregion did not exhibit the levels of female labour-force participationdeveloping in Southeast Asia or parts of Latin America.PAGE 74

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U RThe ILO has recently provided a statistical picture of theinformal economy, which helps shed light on the male–femaleshare of informal employment, job status and incomes earned. 28Some of the findings are summarized below.In developing countries• Informal employment comprises one half to three-quartersof non-agricultural employment: 48 per cent in NorthAfrica, 51 per cent in Latin America, 65 per cent in Asia,72 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa (table 5.4).• Informal employment tends to be a larger source of employmentfor women than for men in all developing regionsexcept North Africa (table 5.4).• Self-employment comprises a greater share of informalemployment (outside agriculture) than wage employmentin all developing regions. In most countries this share isgreater for women than for men (table 5.5).• Although women’s labour force participation rates are lowerthan men’s, the limited data available point to the importanceof women in home-based work and street vending.• Those who work in the informal economy are generally notcovered by labour legislation for social protection and earnless, on average, than workers in the formal economy.Women in all parts of the world speak of the advantages—notably the flexibility—of part-time and home-based work.But this type of labour market adaptation is generally onesided,derived from the needs of employers to access workerswhose domestic responsibilities would otherwise exclude them. 29Much of this work is low-paid and insecure. Typically there are nocontractual rights to paid leave, for sickness, maternity or vacation.Nor are pension rights included. There is an assumptionthat a husband or son will provide support for the retired workerin her old age. 30 Even the presumed advantages of “flexible”work—accommodation of women’s caring responsibilities—maybe less relevant in settings where the potential domestic pool isTable 5.4Informal employment in non-agricultural employment,by sex, different regions and selected countries (1994–2000)Region /country Informal employment Women’s informal Men’s informal employmentas percentage of employment as percentage as percentage of men’snon-agricultural of women’s non-agricultural non-agriculturalemployment employment employmentNorth Africa 48 43 49Algeria 43 41 43Egypt 55 46 57Sub-Saharan Africa 72 84 63Chad 74 95 60Kenya 72 83 59South Africa 51 58 44Latin America 51 58 48Bolivia 63 74 55Brazil 60 67 55Chile 36 44 31El Salvador 57 69 46Mexico 55 55 54Asia 65 65 65India 83 86 83Indonesia 78 77 78Thailand 51 54 49Syrian Arab Republic 42 35 43Source: ILO 2002b.PAGE 77

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DTable 5.5Wage and self-employment in the non-agricultural informal sectorby sex, different regions and selected countries (1994–2000)Country/region Self-employment as percentage Wage employment as a percentageof non-agricultural informalof non-agricultural informalemploymentemploymentSource: ILO 2002b.Total Women Men Total Women MenNorth Africa 62 72 60 38 28 40Algeria 67 81 64 33 19 36Egypt 50 67 47 50 33 53Sub-Saharan Africa 70 71 70 30 29 30Chad 93 99 86 7 1 14Kenya 42 33 56 58 67 44South Africa 25 27 23 75 73 77Latin America 60 58 61 40 42 39Bolivia 81 91 71 19 9 29Brazil 41 32 50 59 68 50Chile 52 39 64 48 61 36El Salvador 65 71 57 35 29 43Mexico 54 53 54 46 47 46Asia 59 63 55 41 37 45India 52 57 51 48 43 49Indonesia 63 70 59 37 30 41Thailand 66 68 64 34 32 36Syrian Arab Republic 65 57 67 35 43 33wide, paid domestic labour is cheap, and where many womenare the sole income earners within their households. 31Rural migrants enteringthe urban informal economyA more in-depth gendered analysis of the informal economy canbe gained by drawing on a range of relevant case studies. Ruralimpoverishment has historically contributed to migration intourban areas and continues to do so. Migrants come from all strataof society, and those who have capital, skills and contacts tendto go furthest and do best. 32 Women who migrate are often seenas “associational”, simply accompanying their husbands: in India,for example, even though female migrants predominate, only1 per cent are recorded as migrating for employment. Howeverwives do look for work, returning home if they fail, and the manywho stay are migrants in their own right. 33 Women’s patterns ofmigration can also change rapidly depending on workplaceopportunity, as has recently happened in Bangladesh. 34The employment of young, rural, migrant women in exportorientedmanufacturing industries has been studied extensivelyover the past decade, with conflicting interpretations of whatsuch employment means to the women involved. However, amuch larger contingent of women can be found on the lowest,least visible rung of the informal employment ladder. Manylack the skills and connections needed to secure more stablejobs with decent pay. They usually live in slum housing withouteven the most basic amenities, and are often at the mercyof local “strongmen”. 35Particularly pertinent in the context of an overall concernwith liberalization is a study in Dhaka (Bangladesh) comparingPAGE 78

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DBox 5.2Kayaye in Ghana: The poor exploiting the very poorCommercial head-loading by girls and women known as kayaye is commonplace in large towns and city areas in Ghana,where women traders and buyers employ these women to move their goods between purchasing points and transport facilities.Head-load portering is women’s work in Ghana as elsewhere in Africa, while portering by men involves the use ofwheeled equipment such as a hand-pulled cart or wheelbarrow.The female portering trade depends on a network of ethnic ties. These facilitate the migration of girls from rural areasand their incorporation into city life, supplying them with accommodation, working tools and access to savings schemes.Most are from northern Ghana, the most economically deprived region in the country; the majority of the kayaye in Accra,for example, come from northern Ghana and spend six months to a year in the city. They maintain close ties with their familiesand send them part of their income. They share accommodation and form savings clubs as part of their strategy to survive.Kayaye typically live in wooden sheds around the markets. These are used for trading by day, and as shelter when thetrading day is over. They pay a fee and sleep on cardboard, sacks or on a piece of cloth. Only at night can they use the shedsfor sleeping, so they have difficulty storing their belongings and caring for their children. Mothers leave their children in thecare of girls aged as young as six, who operate as child minders before graduating into porterage themselves. The kayayes’housing situation makes them vulnerable to sexual abuse.Kayaye are members of a growing urban homeless contingent. After porterage and petty trading, commercial sex is thenext most popular activity among females in this category. Kayaye may also engage in commercial sex work at night to augmenttheir meagre earnings. Children as young as ten are involved in commercial sex, for which there is a high demand.Just as these girls are not able to demand fair wages for their services as porters, they are not able to negotiate safe sex orreasonable wages for sex. They rarely have access to reproductive health services, including safe abortions.Source: UNICEF 2002.street vending and similar activities. In both countries, theinformal economy is dominated by low-return and low-productivityactivities pursued as a means of survival.Perpetuation of informality to disguisereal employmentIn many parts of the world, types of employment relationship areemerging that are purposely disguised as something else, or notclearly defined. Recruitment into more secure positions tends tobe selective, drawing on male candidates with their higher educationalqualifications and other advantages; successful applicantsfor jobs are also often from socially privileged or ethnicallyfavoured groups. Women cannot transcend the many biasesagainst them and remain locked into the casual workforce.Box 5.3 describes the process of labour segmentation inagro-processing in south India. In many such situations,although there is clearly an employment relationship, theworker is not covered by labour legislation, and receives nosocial benefits. In other cases there may be a contract, but therelationship is deliberately disguised as commercial transaction.This is done so that the employer can sidestep labourlegislation and avoid even basic occupational health and safetyresponsibilities, not to mention social benefits. A variationis to acknowledge the employment, but to hire the same workeron repeated short-term contracts—“permanent temporarywork”—so that social benefits and customary entitlements canbe denied.There are also cases where the employment relationship isambiguous: for example, where dependent workers operate athome on a piece-rate basis rather than attend an organized work-PAGE 80

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U RBox 5.3Stratified markets in south India entrench insecurityIn small south Indian towns dominated by agro-processing activity there are several fault lines in the security of labour. Thetypical informal unit is tightly controlled by patriarchal male family members who confer or withdraw security at their whim.Workers are selected by origin (local), caste (usually avoiding Scheduled Castes) and gender (male). There are a number ofpermanent jobs, highly sought after, in livelihoods ranging from the night watch to accountancy. Contracts are individualizedand verbal. Payment periods vary, and may be confined to yearly disbursement, while dismissal is instant. Some permanentjobs can be part-time, others seasonal. A form of occupational welfare is usually extended to this workforce in the form ofloans and gifts of cash for medical costs, education and marriages. These can be seen as primitive imitations of regular stateprotections, but their other purpose is to tie down employees valued by the employer.Meanwhile the casual workforce is entirely at the mercy of the employer and receives no benefits of any kind. Pay is lowand fluctuating, the job turnover is high and security is nonexistent. Labour recruiters belong in the upper category andenjoy annual bonuses and small loans; but they are encouraged to turn labour over fast so as to reduce customary entitlementto annual “gifts” and avoid protective obligations. Male casual labour is occasionally unionized, but the multiplicity ofunions leads to the political mediation of disputes; the state effectively enforces the labour laws, rarely in the workers’ favour.Factory inspectors with huge territories to cover and few resources for enforcing the law are often corruptly implicated withbosses in the evasion of laws and the erosion of labour rights.Female casual labour is subjected to extremes of casualization, negligence and harassment and to unsafe and unsanitaryworking conditions, their wages often being reported by bosses as “pocket money”. In such firms, work has for decades beensubcontracted, often exported to rural sites to avoid inspection and to profit from cheap or unwaged family labour, from lowrents, and from the ease of evasion of any welfare obligations and taxes. Thus capital uses informal practices and a selectiveidiom of social protection to render the majority of the workforce extremely insecure, and a small valued minority less insecure.Source: Harriss-White 2000.place. Increasing numbers of people work in situations wherebrokers or subcontractors intermediate between the person doingthe work, and the firm for which it is being done. The worker onlyhas contact with the supplier of materials and collector of thefinished goods. The broker himself or herself may be operatingon slim profit margins, and also be vulnerable and insecure.After the Asian crisis, the garment industry in the Philippineswas restructured; many women lost their formal jobs, yetremained in the industry. One woman became a labour supplierfor the same firm she had previously worked for, organizingwomen she had formerly worked with, to produce the embroideredsmocking on children’s clothes. She is Gloria Bularin, inbox 5.4 below. This illustrates the many-layered nature of subcontractedwork. It also shows the exceptionally low wages atthe lower end of the chain. Information about the earnings ofmiddle-level subcontractors is invariably difficult to obtain.The informalization process:OutsourcingSince informalization of employment is growing, it is importantto understand the process which leads to the deconstructionof jobs and their removal from the protected workplace.The increased organization of the workplace cannot be guaranteed;on the contrary. Previous assumptions that certainoccupations and enterprises were fixed in the formal or informaleconomy have turned out to be misleading; some that wereformal have become informal, often with the same worker inplace. Textile, clothing, leather and footwear industries inSouth Africa, protected and subsidized under the old apartheidregime, show these characteristics, according to a study documentingthe impacts of labour retrenchment and the introductionof subcontracting and other “flexible” labour practices inPAGE 81

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DBox 5.4Subcontracting and pricing in clothing, the PhilippinesAngono in the Philippines is a town well known for its embroidery work. Demand comes from Carol’s, a major local retailerof children’s wear. In this domestic chain of production, baby dresses with hand embroidery sell for between US$6.86 andUS$9.80. Diana Juan is a supplier to Carol’s. She has live-in workers doing the straight sewing, and subcontracts the handembroidery through Marisol Ugarte, who gets US$0.03 a line. Marisol Ugarte subcontracts to Gloria Bularin at US$0.02 perline. Gloria Bularin in turn organizes homeworkers, who she pays US$0.01 to US$0.015 per line.Source: Doane et al. 2003, cited in Lund 2004.the context of liberalization. 44 With the lowering of trade barriers,imports began to flood the economy. By the late 1990s,both employment and production in the footwear industrybegan to decline, with the clothing, leather and textile sectorslater following suit. Restructuring and “rationalization” inthese labour-intensive industries resulted in massive job losses.As far as women are concerned, the negative employmenteffects stem from the increasing informalization of the workplace.“Rationalization” is achieved through job rotation, outsourcingand subcontracting. Some retrenched workers havebeen encouraged to buy their equipment and set up in homebasedproduction. At the same time, growing numbers ofwomen evicted from these clothing and textile industries areending up in street trading and other survival activities in theinformal economy. Despite official commitment to aid smalland medium-sized enterprises, there is no access to state support,at least from the central government. 45In many countries, the phenomenon of homeworkers isgrowing; most of them are women. Millions of these subcontractedemployees, working on a piece-rate basis, feed productiveprofit-making output from their homes into the more formalmanufacturing companies or their intermediaries. Thepayment they receive is extremely low, and they may have towork extremely long hours or at night to make enough moneyto survive; many also use their children as subsidiary workers.These areas are untouched by labour laws and social welfare.The fact that homeworkers are dispersed raises special challengesfor collective action, but to change the conditions underwhich they work they need to bargain for more regular work orders,higher piece rates and more prompt payment (see box 5.5).Many female homeworkers process products in the globalvalue chain, while others work on articles destined for thedomestic market. In the garments industry workforce alone,the percentage of homeworkers in the mid-1990s was estimatedat 38 per cent in Thailand, between 25–39 per cent in thePhilippines, 30 per cent in one region of Mexico, between30–60 per cent in Chile and 45 per cent in Venezuela. 46 Veryrecent research indicates that some of this “soft” employmentis facing a crisis as textile and garment exports face growingcompetition in world markets, and companies try to cut costsstill further.Informalization and public-sectorretrenchmentIn many low-income countries, public-sector workers have alsobeen crowding into the informal economy, even when theyhave managed to maintain their jobs despite public-sectorretrenchment. The civil service reforms of the early 1990soften entailed radical downsizing; today more emphasis isplaced on “new public management” reforms which seek tochange the incentive structures and outsource some of thefunctions of the public administration (see chapter 11). 47Cameroon is a case in point. Like many other Africancountries, Cameroon underwent an economic recession in thePAGE 82

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U RBox 5.5Homeworkers and the self-employedThe problems and constraints faced by self-employed home-based workers and homeworkers are quite different, althoughboth typically lack bargaining power and have to provide their own social protection. Homeworkers are often forced by circumstancesto work for low wages without secure contracts or fringe benefits and to cover some production costs ... Mostself-employed home-based workers, except high-end professionals, face limited access to and/or competition in relevantmarkets. To improve their situation homeworkers need to strengthen their capacity to bargain for regular work orders, higherpiece rates, and overdue back pay (a common problem faced by homeworkers worldwide); while home-based self-employedneed better access to financial markets and enhanced capacity to compete in product markets. In effect, homeworkers oftenface problems of exploitation while the self-employed often face problems of exclusion. The strategies to address problemsof exploitation in labour markets-such as collective bargaining for higher wages-are different than the strategies to addressproblems of exclusion in capital and product markets—such as providing access to financial, marketing, and business services.Source: ILO 2002b.mid-1980s, and subsequently embarked on a structural adjustmentprogramme. One target of the reforms was the civil service.In addition to downsizing of the public sector throughretrenchments and retirements (in 1995/96 alone, seven ministriesfired significant numbers of workers), the terms and conditionsof service for public employees were drastically trimmed.Within three years, civil servants experienced salary cuts of upto 60 per cent, and payments fell heavily into arrears. As inmany other African countries, civil servants forced to compensatefor loss of earnings and falling living standards began tomake forays into the informal economy, along diverse lines(see box 5.6). 48Women and men are not evenly placed within the publicservice. Women generally tend to have a minimal presence inadministrative and managerial positions; they also tend to clusterwithin services such as health and education. Reliable statisticsshowing how women and men have fared comparatively interms of retrenchment from the public sector are difficult tofind; much depends on where the staff cuts have been made.But public-sector reforms also generate downward pressures onwages and working conditions, and these are likely to have fallenparticularly on lower-level staff. These pressures are affectingwomen health workers and their interactions with women healthusers, as explored in chapter 8.The case of ChinaIn China where women have been intensively employed in stateownedenterprises, the process of industrial restructuring hasdealt a heavy blow to their employment prospects and security.China is often cited as threatening jobs prospects in other partsof the world, with its dynamic export-oriented industries attractingmillions of young rural migrants each year: 48 per cent of allmigrant workers in China are women (figures for 2000).The view of China as the “workshop of the world” is onesided.Often overlooked are the huge inequalities—class,regional, rural/urban, age, gender—stemming from a quartercenturyof market reform which has drastically restructured theeconomy and workforce. The privatization of industry has dealta severe blow to permanent state workers’ entitlements, shatteringtheir prized employment and livelihood security. Workersin collective enterprises, which previously functioned as statesubsidiaries, also suffered huge layoffs. In 1993 the official unionfound that women workers accounted for 37 per cent of all stateworkers but 60 per cent of those laid off and unemployed. By1999 women accounted for 45 per cent of all laid-off workers. 49Informal work, termed “flexible employment” by someChinese researchers, has become a major source of income forthe unemployed. The availability of such employment variesPAGE 83

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DBox 5.6Straddling strategies by teachers and health workers in the South WestProvince of CameroonBefore the economic crisis, teachers were among the best-paid civil servants in Cameroon. Once the reforms began to bite,teachers began to supplement their falling wages with informal activities. They now comprise the largest number of formalemployees working as newcomer entrants into the informal economy: 67 out of 75 of the teachers interviewed in a studyundertook such activities. Health workers are now joining them, as are clerical staff.These public-sector workers use their position, equipment and time in the regular workplace to undertake other profitmakingwork on an informal basis. The different ways they do this depend on the existing job and to a considerable extenton gender. In the case of teachers, while men, and a few women, provided supplementary private tuition for individual studentsor classes, and sold reproductions of lecture notes to secondary and high-school students, women teachers mostlyundertook petty trading in food. They sold meals at lunch time and a variety of snacks, as well as non-food items. The capitalbase of such trade is very small.Nurses, like teachers, were involved in informal activities related to their formal work. From being a secretive sporadicactivity, private practice or “PP” became widespread and open after general and hospital strikes of the early 1990s failed toobtain improved working conditions and salaries. PP commonly involves minor consultations and drug sales to patients outsidethe hospital, sales of drugs within hospital premises during working hours, home-care nursing, or a combination ofinformal health care and petty trading.Source: Agbaw 2000, cited in Tsikata 2004.across cities and regions, but the Ministry of Labour has estimatedthat of 25 million unemployed and laid-off workers nationwide,15 million have found jobs in the informal economy. 50Those with financial means have opened up private or familybusinesses such as restaurants, salons or neighbourhood stores.At the other end of the spectrum, especially in the northeast“rust belt” where economic growth has been sluggish, casualwork only is available. Men work as day labourers in construction,help out in private enterprises or trade on the street.Unemployed women workers sometimes turn to prostitution.In one study in three northeastern cities, of more than 100 sexworkers, 74 per cent were former state-owned-enterprise workers,and most (92 per cent) had become sex workers after seekingalternative employment for over four years. 51There are no clear patterns of gender disparity in the reemploymentof laid-off workers. Qualitative studies have offereddivergent interpretations. One study in Wuhan finds thatfemale laid-off workers have a better chance starting a serviceorientedbusiness than male counterparts; these are more averseto service roles but have more success in finding positions inestablished companies. 52 Another study in three cities finds thatage discrimination is at least as serious as sex discrimination.Almost every interviewee aged over 30 cited this rather thangender as a major obstacle to finding re-employment. This situationis compounded by the cohort experience of the over-30s asthe unlucky generation sent out to the countryside during theCultural Revolution and deprived of a sound education. 53Another issue often overlooked in discussions about Chinais the sharp increase in labour conflicts. There has been a proliferationof conventional and irregular labour activism, frompetitions, labour arbitration and litigation, through protests,marches and road blockages. The state has responded withmeasured mixes of concession and repression. Economic andlivelihood demands are recognized and often partially answeredby swift financial compensation doled out by the central orprovincial government. However political demands such as forthe removal of officials and cross-factory actions are relentlesslysuppressed and harshly punished. There is only one legal unionPAGE 84

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U Rin China, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).Independent unions are illegal, and attempts at formingautonomous unions have been designated as treason or subversion.However, even where trade unions and NGOs are legaland tolerated, the organization of women workers in the informaleconomy presents formidable challenges.ORGANIZATIONS OFINFORMAL WORKERSOne of the promising developments of the 1990s was the emergenceof new forms of organizing among women workers in theinformal economy, both domestically and internationally. TheSelf Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), in Gujarat, India,with 700,000 members, is one of the oldest and best-known;many others have emerged over the past decade, some takingSEWA as their model, as did the South African Self-EmployedWomen’s Union (SEWU), formed in 1993. These organizationsinclude street vendors, home-based workers and small agriculturalproducers. Other women’s associations—some independentlyand some as part of national trade union federations—havefocused on organizing domestic workers; these remain a highlyvulnerable section of the female workforce in many countries,both developed and developing.Historically, women workers have found it very difficult tovoice their concerns from within male-dominated trade unions.In the 19th and early 20th century industrial revolution, tradeunions were hostile to women workers’ presence in the industrialworkforce; they used protective legislation and the construct ofthe “family wage” to relegate women to the sphere of unpaidwork in the home. 54 The picture has changed dramatically downthe years, largely through women’s efforts to reform workplaceprocedures, goals and cultures, both from within mainstreamtrade unions and by building independent trade unions. However,women’s attempts to secure gender justice and paritywithin labour organizations are often resisted or sidelined.Responsiveness to women workers has been equally problematicin the developing world. Even where an explicit commitmentto women workers’ rights has been made, it is rarelyrecognized that women workers may have different prioritiesfrom male workers: childcare support, for example, may be moreimportant to them than a minimum wage. 55 An illustration of“gender blindness” comes from an electronics factory in India.Women workers organized to make certain demands: a companybus so as to avoid sexual harassment on public transport,especially late in the evening and uniforms, to reduce the hierarchiesand problems arising from the fact that women in thisfactory came from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Thesedemands were agreed by management, but the male workerswere dismissive: “Girls do not know how to raise demands.They fall into the trap laid by management. They ask for generalfacilities while the real issue is wages … now the girls havea bus, uniforms so they are just happy with that. They don’t askfor wages.” 56The attitude of Indian trade unions to informal workers ingeneral has been described as “indifference, rising almost toenmity”, underpinned by “fear that pressure from below wouldlead to the gradual erosion of the rights gained during a longstruggle by protected labour”. 57 Homeworkers have been seen byunions as “outlaws” or “scab labour”, undercutting the organizedworkplace. These fears are understandable, especially in economieswhere the formal regulated workforce is no more than10 per cent of the total workforce. However, this demonstratesthat the culture and procedures of the trade union movement,primarily a champion of male workers in the formal sector, arebiased towards male preoccupations and are out of tune withthe lives of predominantly informally working women. 58 Notsurprisingly, women have tended to create a “separate space”,either within mainstream trade unions or independently, wheretheir concerns can receive a better hearing.Today, there are many women workers’ organizations of differentorigins and types. Some are independent organizationsthat have arisen outside the framework of the traditional tradeunion movement; others are independent within establishedtrade union structures; yet others are part of unions originatingin the formal economy but organizing informal workers. Theycover a great variety of industrial sectors and services, as well asagriculture and rural occupations. In some developing countries,however, NGOs have taken up the needs and rights ofPAGE 85

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L Dwomen workers. Some offer affordable services, such as childcarefacilities, low-cost residences and legal support. New kindsof labour organizations are also emerging that base themselveswithin the community, and offer a much wider range of supportservices than do traditional trade unions. 59Many of these new trade unions, as well as NGOs and community-basedorganizations (CBOs) responding to women workers’rights, face major difficulties in expanding their reach and becomingsustainable. SEWU’s main challenge, for example, remains itspersistent inability to become financially self-sufficient: after10 years, its paid-up membership remains less than 5,000, whilemore than 10,000 members have allowed their membership tolapse by non-payment of dues. This is a problem shared by otherunions of vulnerable workers in South Africa and elsewhere.NGOs have greater flexibility because they are not membership-basedorganizations and seldom have a single constituency;but this also raises questions about their accountability, whichis not usually democratic and is rarely transparent to their beneficiaries.Both trade unions and NGOs face challenges inalliance-building to broaden the scope and reach of their efforts.While there is wide scope for trade unions and NGOs to supporteach others’ aims—and there are some exemplary cases ofcollaboration—relations between them have often sufferedfrom tensions and rivalries rooted in ideological and organizationaldifferences. 60Despite such caveats these developments are promising.Only through collective action have workers historically regulatedtheir wages and working conditions, and eliminated theworst forms of exploitation; they were responsible, in effect, forthe formalization of the workplace. But the stresses of the lastcouple of decades have other ramifications. Not only have newunion and NGO workers’ champions emerged, but the tradeunion movement has itself suffered a major shake-up. Olderorganizations have seen their membership and influence declineand been forced to adjust to new realities in the world of work.The General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) ofGhana is a case in point. It expanded its membership to nonwagedworkers and subsistence farmers after structural adjustmentcaused its membership to drop from 130,000 to 30,000. Anotherexample is the Uganda Public Employees Union (UPEU). Inthe 1990s, membership dropped from 108,000 to 700 as a resultof public sector reforms. The union then transformed its outlookand scope: it revised the concept of “public employee” from thenarrow meaning of “civil servant” to a much broader conceptof engagement in serving the public, including such groups asstreet vendors. As a result of this change and an organizationaldrive, its membership grew to 17,000 by 1999. 61International campaigns and alliancesIn recent years the issue of labour standards has become divisivein view of proposals being made for its enforcement throughinternational trade agreements and trade sanctions. There are,understandably, concerns among Southern governments andcivil-society groups about protectionist motives lurking behindsuch proposals. More to the point, it is not just the traded sectorsthat require labour-market regulation.While transnational alliances between trade unions andNGOs have been effective in campaigning for workers’ rights,these campaigns have been limited to workers in traded goods visibleto Northern consumers. The direct benefits are often limitedto workers with jobs dependent on multinational companiesand their subcontractors, who are often among the more privilegedand best-paid members of the workforce. 62 Where a muchlarger proportion of the workforce operates in the informaleconomy in far worse conditions, they are beyond the reach of suchcampaigns. However, the different segments of the workforcedo not necessarily live in isolation from each other. Successfulcampaigns and organizations affecting one segment are likelyto have ripple effects on power relations elsewhere. The femaleworking class is less segmented than sometimes appears, andchanges in one part are likely to have implications in others.For women with virtually no assets and who work in the informaleconomy, collective action through democratic organizationalroutes presents the only practicable avenue for regulatingor improving their working conditions. The idea that the formalizationof property rights constitutes the solution to theproblems of the informal economy is a complete misconceptionas far as working women are concerned (see box 5.7).PAGE 86

C H A P T E R 5 – T H E F E M I N I Z A T I O N A N D I N F O R M A L I Z A T I O N O F L A B O U RBox 5.7“Property rights” are no panacea for the informal economyThe influential work of Hernando de Soto has paved the way for a particular policy perspective on the informal economy. 63According to de Soto the transition of informal into formal work is constrained by a deficient framework of property rights.Allegedly, lack of legal recognition for some forms of property constrains access to institutional sources of credit. A similarperspective informed the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. Its report sees the legalization of defacto property rights as:a vital step in the transformation of the informal economy. To achieve this, governments need to:identify the people and assets concerned; identify the practices and customs which govern the ownership,use and transfer of these assets, so as to root property law in the prevailing social context;and identify administrative, bureaucratic and legal bottlenecks and obstacles to market access. 64The axiomatic understanding of such a position is that the informal economy is inherently vibrant, flexible and dynamic,and that it can effectively compete with larger units in the formal sector once constraints—such as lack of access to credit—are removed. This ignores a number of the informal economy’s key features, and the problems faced by its many and variedpractitioners.The size of its units—typically individuals and households—is critical in many ways. For example, market access is fundamentallydependent not on legal status, but on output. Larger size allows organizational economies of scale. Increasedaccess to markets by small units usually requires some degree of co-operation between them; alternatively, they might makearrangements with a larger unit or obtain public intervention through marketing bodies. As for credit, access is typicallymore difficult for all small units, even in the formal sector, not only because of the lack of collateral and high administrativecosts, but because they are perceived to be inherently more risk-prone.Looking at the issue of property rights itself, there are problems and risks associated with the establishment of rights,such as regulated tenure and ownership of land. The evidence from sub-Saharan Africa shows that the customary rights ofwomen, and of other marginal groups, are often lost in the process of titling and registration. A large number of workers inthe informal economy anyway have no “property” to be registered; they are engaged in informal activities only becausethey cannot find work in the formal sector. Most women workers are in this category.Finally, and perhaps most crucially, it is a mistake to assume that all informal activity is effectively self-employment andthat employer–worker relationships do not exist. As already demonstrated, a main attraction of the informal economy foremployers is precisely the absence of labour regulation, allowing lower labour costs and greater exploitation of workers.Increasingly, formal sector organizations depend on units of the informal sector to undertake production by means of subcontracting;the line between the two sectors has thus become much harder to draw. This means that the most basic differencebetween formal and informal parts of the economy is not the access to credit or markets, but the absence of regulationand lack of protection for workers in the informal economy, as well as the latter’s lack of voice and political influence.Source: Ghosh 2004b.PAGE 87

G E N D E R E Q U A L I T Y : S T R I V I N G F O R J U S T I C E I N A N U N E Q U A L W O R L DNotes1 Figure 5.1 includes countries in the MENA region for which data wereavailable. Because of certain shared characteristics, including culture,religion, history, and the prevalence of oil economies, the MENA regionis considered an appropriate site for regional analysis, not only by internationalorganizations such as the World Bank but also by scholarlyorganizations such as the Middle East Studies Association.2 Elson 1999.3 Anker et al. 2003; Anker 1998.4 Kabeer 1995.5 Elson 1999; Folbre 1994.6 ILO 2002b.7 Standing 1999.8 Pearson 2004.9 Ghosh 2003a.10 Ghosh 2003a.11 UN 1999.12 Ghosh 2003a.13 This section draws heavily on Orloff 2002.14 Orloff 2002.15 Hochschild 1989.16 ILO 2002b.17 ILO 2002b:27.18 Lewis and Giullari 2004.19 Einhorn 1993.20 Eisenstein 1993.21 Fodor 2004b.22 Heinen and Portet 2002.23 Pearson 2004.24 Karshenas 2001 cited in Moghadam 2004.25 Moghadam 2004.26 Harriss-White 2000.27 ILO 2002b.28 ILO 2002b.29 Elson 1999.30 Elson 1999.31 Pape 2000 cited in Tsikata 2004.32 Breman 1996.33 Jackson and Rao 2004.34 Kabeer and Mahmud 2004.35 Roy 2003.36 Kabeer and Mahmud 2004:tables 7 and 8.37 Kabeer and Mahmud 2004.38 Kabeer 2004.39 Rogerson 1997 cited in Tsikata 2004.40 Tsikata 2004; Hart 2004.41 Davis 2004:22 cited in Tsikata 2004.42 Tokam 2002.43 Beneria and Floro 2004.44 Deedat 2003; see also Hart 2004.45 Lund et al. 2000.46 Chen et al. 1999.47 Bangura 1994, 2000.48 Agbaw 2000, cited in Tsikata 2004.49 Chang 1995; China Employment Report 2002 cited in Lee 2004.50 Institute for Labour Studies of the Ministry of Labour and SocialSecurity of China 2002, cited in Lee 2004.51 Huang and Wuanming 2003, cited in Lee 2004.52 Tsui 2002, cited in Lee 2004.53 Cook and Jolly 2001.54 Hartman 1979; Gallin and Horn 2004.55 Chhachhi and Pittin 1996; Rowbotham and Mitter 1994.56 Chhachhi and Pittin 1996:115–16.57 Breman 1996:247.58 Mitter 1994.59 Kabeer 2004.60 Eade 2004.61 Gallin 2004.62 Anner and Evans 2004; UNRISD 2004.63 De Soto 2000.64 ILO 2004e: 61.PAGE 88

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