Welcome to JJEM: A Multi-Disicplinary Journal of JNNCE, Shimoga |
Mansi Shah, Reema Nanavathy
The world of work is changing at a rapid pace. Technological changes, climate change, globalization is influencing the availability of jobs and the nature of work conditions. The informal sector is on the rise world over and more so in the countries of the Global south. Today, over 94% of the Indian workforce is in the informal sector with hardly any access to social security. The employment opportunities available in informal economy is never constant due to severe competition, market trends and changing economic policies. In such situations, informal sector workers often have to pursue more than one trade. Thus, a construction worker also works as a domestic worker or casual worker during evening hours and as a kite-maker around the kite festival. Their occupation varies depending on what is more conducive at what point of time. In such scenario, the dignity of such workers is often compromised and they end up in the vicious down-fall of drudgery and poverty. Women are poorest of poor in the informal sector. They are also the worst affected as in spite of contributing so much to the work, they do not have any recognition. Their access to tools and equipment is limited, leading to low productivity and often poor quality. Their access to markets is limited, use of social protection is restricted, and inclusion in policy dialogue—labour or economic is very low. Thus, when we are talking about future of work in context of the informal sector, it is very crucial to focus on areas of Gender and Home-based work. At SEWA, we strongly believe that “Asset creation is the surest way to fight poverty”. Therefore, to bring voice, visibility and viability to poor women workers in the informal sector, it is important to enable their economic empowerment. SEWA has been working towards this since over 45 years, organizing poor women workers from the informal economy in to their own cooperative / collectives /federations / producer companies /microenterprises, thus generating asset in the name of the women, increasing their collective bargaining strength, facilitating a way out of the vicious circle of debt and poverty – thus formalizing the informal sector workforce.
Technological changes; employment opportunities; social protection.