Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Gender, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights, Labour, Poverty & SDGs, Women & Economy

RIGHTS: Will World Leaders Face the “Pink Collar” Underclass?

Anja Tranovich

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 1 2005 (IPS) - Even as the global marketplace has brought new opportunities and jobs for some, much of the world’s working poor remains ensnared in an informal economy where low-paying and unreliable jobs perpetuate poverty.

In fact, around the globe, the availability of formal jobs is shrinking while the informal sector is growing rapidly, often resulting in less stability, pay and benefits, especially for female workers, according to a new report by the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), titled “Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty”.

In developing countries, informal labour accounts for 50-80 percent of all non-agricultural employment. And when agricultural workers are added, the figure is much higher.

This informal workforce is disproportionately populated by women. A recent U.N. report on progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) notes that, “Women’s access to paid employment is lower than men’s in most of the developing world…Women are less likely than men to hold paid and regular jobs and more often work in the informal economy, which provides little financial security.”

The eight MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; environmental sustainability; reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and a global partnership for development between the rich and poor – all by 2015.

The UNIFEM report notes that one of the main problems is the widespread wage gap between men and women in almost all job categories, and the extra demands on women’s time in terms of childcare and housework. “The totality of women’s work remains poorly understood and measured,” said Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of UNIFEM. “In virtually all countries and traditions of the world, women still bear the primary responsibility for providing (housework and childcare), which impacts their ability to participate in the labour market.” Women are not only more likely to work in the informal sector, but they also tend to work in the most precarious jobs, and earn the lowest wages. “This report links poverty with gender equality,” Heyzer told IPS. “What we are saying is that you cannot reduce poverty without looking at feminised poverty.”

Women’s work in the informal sector generally does not fall under the legal framework of employee/employer relationships that are regulated locally and nationally. It is thus excluded from social and legal protections like minimum wage laws.

“I work for more than 18 hours a day but still do not earn enough to feed myself my husband and my two children,” one Cambodian worker says in the UNIFEM report.

“‘Progress 2005’ is based on the premise that decent work is fundamental to economic security and poverty reduction,” said Martha Chen, coordinator of the global research-policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising, and a co-author of the report.

Jobs must be well-compensated, stable and safe, she explained.

The report recommends gathering more data on the issue, since quantifying the hours that women spend in unpaid work could make the problem more visible and real to policymakers.

“Statistics have power,” explains Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self Employed Women’s Association in India. “When statistics are in the hands of activists, then struggles are strengthened.”

The UNIFEM report also urges policymakers to shift the focus of national and regional economic policies from growth to issues of work and employment.

“Strategies to reduce poverty and promote inequality should be employment-oriented and worker-centred,” states the report. “This change cannot happen through economic policy alone. Free market reforms such as deregulation and privatisation do not entail a reduction in poverty or decrease in gender inequality.”

“Economic policies that discount the real-life structure and behaviour of labour markets cannot be assumed to be neutral towards labour,” it says. “Similarly, economic policies that ignore the fact that most unpaid care work is done by women cannot be assumed to be neutral towards women’s labour in particular.”

Heyzer told IPS, “The good news is that solutions exist and that change can happen – there are ‘do-ables’.”

“These include ensuring that women don’t just have a right to work but have rights at work, so improving working conditions, supporting women’s organising so they can claim their rights, opening up markets for women, expanding their access to credit and financial markets” is critical, she explained.

Heyzer said that significant progress on the MDGs – specifically goals one and three, of reducing the proportion of people living on a dollar a day by half and eliminating gender inequality – cannot be made unless sexism in the workplace and job market is addressed.

“We have released this report to align ourselves with the upcoming World Summit, when world leaders are coming together to look at concrete actions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” she said. “Unless closer attention is paid to strengthening women’s economic security, poverty cannot be eradicated.”

From Sep. 14-16, the United Nations headquarters in New York will host more than 175 heads of state, but many activists are worried that the meeting’s primary agenda of tackling poverty is being sidetracked by an over-emphasis on security issues and U.N. reform – and particularly far-reaching changes sought by the United States.