WORKING POOR IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY In Unregulated Factories: garment makers shoe makers In Small Workshops: scrap metal recyclers shoe makers weavers garment makers and embroiderers paper-bag makers On Streets or In Open Spaces: street vendors push-cart vendors garbage collectors roadside barbers construction workers In Fields, Pastures, and Forests: small farmers agricultural labourers shepherds forest gatherers At Home: garment workers embroiderers shoemakers artisans or craft producers assemblers of electronic parts

2 Social protection for women in informal employment: the links between poverty, economic growth and care work? Francie Lund WIEGO: Social Protection Programme Director and Senior Research Associate, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban Presentation at Centre for Social Development in Africa International Symposium 24 th and 25 th May 2011

Main argument and questions: Women are increasingly active in paid work, and do most of the work in paid care work, and unpaid care work A gendered view of the changing labour market, and the extra need for care in light of HIV/ AIDS, are seldom put together in the same analysis. Who is going to DO social development, take up on the new opportunities, at what additional cost? How will those who promote social development challenge governments and employers on this issue? 3

The informal economy –The informal economy is the diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, and workers who are not regulated or protected by the state. –Employment in the informal economy is categorised (formal ILO definitions) as: Self-employment in informal enterprises:  employers  own account operators (don’t employ anyone else)  unpaid contributing family workers Wage employment in informal jobs:  non-standard employees of informal enterprises  non-standard employees of formal enterprises  casual or day labourers  industrial outworkers (also called homeworkers)

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub Saharan Africa has high rates of informal employment, especially among women (South Africa is the outlier) Informal traders in African countries (where data is available) constitute between 85 and 99 percent of total employment in trade (ILO 2002: 53) Under-employment in low-end economic activities may be a greater problem in Sub-Saharan Africa than open unemployment (Heintz and Valodia 2008) 5

Employment, informality and poverty Most of the poor in SADC countries are working. Informal rather than formal employment is increasing. The vast majority of the working poor – those who earn less than US$ 1 per day - earn their living in the informal economy where: –average earnings are low –risks are high Poverty reduction over the long term is not possible without a)Increasing formal employment opportunities AND b)Increasing the assets and earnings of those who work informally AND c) Reducing the risks of those who work in the informal economy.

Segmented labour markets/ employment structures What do we mean by segmentation? Constraints exist which prevent individuals from moving into better employment opportunities (or improving the quality of existing employment) What causes segmentation? Discrimination, social norms, unequal wealth/assets, lack of credit, lack of public goods/services, etc Unpaid care responsibilities Why does segmentation matter? Reinforces existing patterns of poverty and social exclusion. Issue of equity: class, gender, racial, caste segmentation. Issue of basic rights and the choices available to individuals.

Segmentation of the informal economy: by sex, average earnings, and poverty risk

Social protection The vast majority of poor who work informally: –have no social security coverage to protect against short term risks or life-time contingencies –cannot afford private insurance, have little access to social insurance Poorer people live and work in poor communities, where it is hard to insure against risk In ‘developing’ countries: –state systems of social insurance do not target informal workers, wage employed or self-employed –state systems of social assistance for poorer and vulnerable people do not target able-bodied people of working age

The problem: paid and unpaid care work Most of the unpaid care work done inside the household is done by women – and it is underestimated and not properly valued Most workers in the formal caring professions – nurses, social workers, teachers – are women, and there is a ‘care penalty’ (nurses versus engineers) Policies of ‘community care’ assume that poorer women will do a lot of the community-based work at the end of the ‘continuum of care’ (e.g. Ruth Meena’s work in Tanzania) Volunteer work has costs which are borne by poorer people, mostly by women 10

Valuing unpaid care work – evidence from Time Use Surveys Unpaid household-based care work is invisible and undercounted. In the South African 2000 TUS it comprises 1) household maintenance 2) person care (of others in the household) 3) community services and help to other households Unpaid care work as a whole was worth 11 percent of total GDP, using median wage of domestic workers (a conservative measure) ‘Person care’ contributed between 1.4 percent and 3.7 percent of GDP (narrower and broader measure) 11

The care penalty - nurses and engineers: Same years training; same skills level in official categorisation of occupational status Professional engineers –92% male –65% earn more than R6000 a month –35% earn more than R16000 Professional nurses –91% female –54% earn more than R6000 a month –1% earn more than R16000 Associate engineers –68% male –8% earn more than R16000 a month Source: Debbie Budlender and UNRISD project, in Lund 2010 Assistant nurses –89% female –1% earn more than R16000 a month 12

Task shifting within nursing Tasks preserved for those with a certain level of skill are delegated to those with another level of skill – downwards or upwards Primary health care – much wider and better sharing of skills within health professions – auxiliaries, community health workers Now under global skills shortages and migration, and HIV/ AIDS, and pressed health budgets – task-shifting downwards and into ‘community care’ end of ‘continuum of care’. When done in the context of scarce resources, it means that women in poorer communities do even more of the health- and welfare-related work. 13

Volunteer care-giving – ‘community care’ Budlender (2009): ‘Compensation for contributions’ – Report on a survey of 1400 care-giving volunteers across six countries – Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda Two thirds were women Two thirds were between 30 and 49 years old (own household caring responsibilities ) They worked an average of 4.6 hours per day (using the diary method - more accurate than recall) 55% also did income-earning work They mostly did home visits, monitoring ARTs, visiting patients in clinic or hospital 87% had transport costs not covered by the organisations with which they volunteered Only a third received care kits and cleaning materials 14

Research questions for social development Volunteer work leading to informal/ casual employment (though low paid) – appears to be a step into more secure work. Does it keep hope alive? How could social development be crafted to support and enable such transitions? What does it cost for people to attend training to build their skills? How are men going to be encouraged to do more of the work of care, and of social development, so that women can take/make more paid work? 15

What to do? Social policies, and the social development approach, cannot remediate the effects of economic policies which make poor people even more vulnerable. Helps to think about it by sector – for example –Domestic workers – more formalisation is possible in some countries –Street vendors – stop beating them up and taking away their livelihoods; provide infrastructure which helps to secure small but reliable incomes –Industrial outworkers – integrate more social development agreements into trade agreements? Into corporate social responsibility budgets? –Waste recyclers – much to learn from organisations such as co- ops in LA who move themselves up the value chain Formal trade unions need to understand the need for alliances with and integration of informal workers. 16