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MAINSTREAMING INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT AND GENDER IN POVERTY REDUCTION A Handbook for Policy-makers and other Stakeholders |
ID: 66028 Added: 2004-10-21 12:09 Modified: 2005-10-14 15:20 Refreshed: 2006-01-25 06:27 |
MAINSTREAMING INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT AND GENDER IN POVERTY REDUCTION A Handbook for Policy-makers and other Stakeholders Martha Alter Chen, Joann Vanek, and Marilyn Carr Commonwealth Secretariat/IDRC 2004 ISBN 1-55250-173-6 272 pp. Economic self-reliance is as important as political independence. Women want access to and ownership of resources; they want to be able to express and represent themselves, but more than anything they want to work. “If we work, we survive,” they say. In September 2000, member countries of the United Nations, as part of the Millennium Summit, committed themselves to halve the proportion of the global population that survives on less than $1 a day by the year 2015. Many of those living in poverty work all of their lives without lifting themselves out of poverty. The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 550 million working poor and their numbers may double before 2015. Thus, if the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) relating to poverty is to be met, greater emphasis must be place on increasing both the quantity and the quality of employment opportunities for the working poor, and especially women. Yes, overall, the MDGs lack and explicit focus on employment or, more critically, on better employment for the working poor. In this book, the authors highlight the lack of attention to employment, and especially informal employment, in poverty-reduction strategies and point to the links between being informally employed, being a woman or a man and being poor. They do this within the context of major changes in the nature of the work related to economic restructuring and liberalization and map out the impacts on different categories of informal producers and workers, both men and women. The book draws widely on recent data and evidence of the global research policy network called Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) as well as the knowledge and experience of the grassroots organizations in the network. Liberally scattered with practical examples, it provides a convincing case for an increased emphasis on informal employment and gender in poverty-reduction strategies, and sets out a strategic framework that offers guidelines for policymakers seeking to follow this approach. THE AUTHORS Martha Alter Chen is a gender and development specialist and a Lecturer in Public Policy and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA. Joann Vanek is a sociologies who specializes in social and gender statistics and worked for many years in the UN Statistics Division in New York. Marilyn Carr is a development economist and a Research Associate at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK.
Foreword – Nancy Spence, Commonwealth Secretariat 2004 Executive Summary 2004 1. Employment: The “Missing Link” in the Poverty Debates The Globalisation-Growth-Poverty Debate 2004 Terms of the Debate 2004 The “Missing Link” in the Debate 2004 Conclusion 2004 2. Informal Employment, Gender and Poverty The Informal Economy 2004 Women and Men in the Informal Economy 2004 The Links between Informal Employment, Poverty and Gender 2004 Gender Segmentation of the Informal Economy 2004 Hidden Costs of Informal Employment 2004 The Global Horticulture Value Chain: An Illustrative Case Study 2004 Gender Segmentation of the Informal Economy and Poverty 2004 3. The Changing World of Work: Linking Economic Reforms-Gender-Poverty 2004 Economic Reforms and Poverty 2004 Trade and Employment 2004 The Changing Nature of Work 2004 Conclusion 2004 4. Decent Work for Informal Workers: Promising Strategies and Examples 2004 Goal 1: Promoting Opportunities 2004 Goal 2: Securing Rights 2004 Goal 3: Promoting Protection 2004 Goal 4: Promoting Voice 2004 Supporting Strategy – Collecting Statistics on the Informal Economy 2004 Conclusion 2004 5. Informal Employment and Gender: A Strategic Policy Approach 2004 Policy Perspective 2004 Policy Goals 2004 Substantive Policy Areas 2004 Key Actors 2004 Policy Process 2004 References 2004 Appendices 2004 |
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