Reflections on Day 1 Sarah Cook

Context Context: programmes on Womens economic empowerment Socially Inclusive Growth Consensus… What matters for empowerment: Centrally - whether women work, choices, type of work, terms of engagement, access and agency… … which depend on …

Overarching questions.. In low income contexts, what are the barriers and constraints to empowering forms of work? –How real labour markets work… How can positive changes (at individual or aggregate level) be sustained? –Policy, political action, organising, making claims –the role of the state in/with the market –What is the link between these changes and pattern of growth (inclusive/(in)equality).. ?

Gaps Labour market – supply and demand –Gaps: more important on demand side –Neglected supply constraints – non-market BUT standard labour market models / approaches do not capture how the exchange of labour (possibly mediated through other goods) really works in low income contexts (esp. at the subsistence end)

Agenda Theoretical and empirical To understand how labour is exchanged / how the real labour market works in low income countries/contexts (esp. for women) –Labour as a produced factor (links production, reproduction, investment/accumulation) –Labour as derived demand –Production and consumption decisions are not separable (subsistence end)

Rethinking real labour markets from a gender perspective involves understanding levels and linkages –Crucially: care/reproductive sector, unpaid work… not just as SS constraint –Links between macro policy environment and labour demand

Theme 1 Key linkage between domestic production / reproduction and production but the continuing invisibility in the analysis of world economic and political structures of the domestic (Elson) Recognising the essential role of the domestic sector in the production of the labour force and the creation of intangible social assets (norms of behaviour, trust and reciprocity - social capital): –who pays?

Theme 2 What macro / sectoral economic policies (directly or indirectly) support or hinder better employment opportunities for women? –Context: liberalisation-financialisation… etc has contributed to processes of informalisation, casualisation.. Which is the context for problematic labour demand, conditions of work… Making explicit gendered biases (indirect?) – institutions, macro and sectoral (industrial etc) policies, regulatory frameworks … implications for labour demand (and functional income distribution)

Overall: programme has potential to be pathbreaking –Empirical work (quantitative and qualititative, multi-disciplinary) –Challenging standard frameworks and assumptions (and breaking out of some traps) –Leading to better policy and action at multiple levels