What Is Missing from National Economic Recovery Plans? COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
- Authors: Mhlana, Siviwe , Moussié, Rachel , Roever, Sally , Rogan, Michael
- Date: 2024
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478139 , vital:78158 , ISBN 9780198887041 , 10.1093/oso/9780198887041.001.0001
- Description: At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020, there was nearuniversal acknowledgement that employment losses, globally, would be borne disproportionately by vulnerable workers, in general, and informal workers, in particular (ILO 2020a). Of the world’s 2.2 billion informal workers, it was estimated that 1.6 billion would be among the most severely affected by job losses and reduced working hours (ILO 2020b). The result of this impact has been the reversal of decades of progress in human development. For example, the number of people living in extreme poverty in emerging markets and developing economies was expected to increase by 100 million by the end of 2021 (World Bank 2021a). Similarly, the gendered burden of job losses has threatened progress towards gender equality, as evidenced by the highly uneven recovery of employment between women and men throughout 2021 (ILO 2021a). Country-level data on job losses provides support for the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) initial projections about the vulnerability of informal workers to the global ‘pandemic recession’. Most informal workers in the world are located in low-and middle-income countries and are in self-employment. Data from ILOSTAT shows that working hours in lower-income countries in 2021 were about 7 per cent below their pre-COVID (2019) levels, while the corresponding decrease was only about 4 per cent in high-income countries (ILO 2021c). Data from Peru in 2020 suggests that the difference in the decrease in labour income between employees and the self employed (who are largely in the informal sector) was 21 percentage points (ILO 2021b; see also Chen and Vanek, Chapter 2 in thisvolume).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024
Informal employment: what is missing from national economic recovery plans?
- Authors: Mhlana, Siviwe , Moussié, Rachel , Roever, Sally , Rogan, Michael
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/477952 , vital:78139 , ISBN , https://hdl.handle.net/10419/283788
- Description: Throughout 2021, fiscal stimulus packages were introduced to jump-start the COVID-19 'post-pandemic' economic recovery process. While calls for economic recovery packages that promise to 'build back better' have come from many directions, the under-allocation of recovery resources directed at workers in the informal economy threatens the recovery of livelihoods for the majority of the world's workforce. This paper analyses the economic recovery approaches of two low-income (Bangladesh and Kenya) and two middle-income (South Africa and Thailand) countries. The paper assesses the economic recovery responses in light of what is known about the impact of the crisis on informal workers globally, and the structure of informal employment in each country. The paper assesses national recovery packages with particular attention to the largest segments of informal employment and those where women are over-represented. The paper concludes with a reflection on what more needs to be done to ensure that national level economic recovery packages can support the livelihoods of the majority of workers in emerging and developing countries.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
Effets de la pandémie de COVID-19 et du travail de soins non rémunéré sur les moyens d'existence des travailleurs informels
- Authors: Ogando, Ana C , Rogan, Michael , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: French
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/473894 , vital:77691 , https://doi.org/10.1111/ilrf.12239
- Description: Avec la pandémie de COVID‐19, la crise sanitaire et économique s'est doublée d'une crise du travail de soins. Tous les travailleurs en ont pâti, y compris dans l'économie informelle. Les auteurs exploitent les résultats d'une étude longitudinale menée par le réseau WIEGO en juin‐juillet 2020 auprès de travailleurs informels de douze villes. Ils observent que la crise a accru la charge du travail de soins, avec des conséquences sur les moyens d'existence et la sécurité alimentaire. L'analyse sexospécifique de l'activité professionnelle et du travail de soins non rémunéré permet de comprendre les répercussions particulières de la crise sur les travailleurs informels dans le monde.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and unpaid care work on informal workers' livelihoods
- Authors: Ogando, Ana C , Rogan, Michael , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/477908 , vital:78135 , https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12332
- Description: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a health, economic and care crisis affecting all workers, including those in the informal economy. This article uses data from the first round of a mixed‐methods longitudinal study conducted in June/July 2020 by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing in partnership with informal workers' organizations in 12 cities. It assesses the impacts of the multidimensional crisis on care responsibilities and the resulting effects on livelihoods and food security. A gendered analysis of paid work and unpaid care work sheds light on the unique features of the impacts of the current “pandemic recession” on the world's informal labour force.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Repercusiones de la pandemia de COVID‐19 y del trabajo de cuidados no remunerado en los medios de vida de las trabajadoras y trabajadores informales
- Authors: Ogando, Ana C , Rogan, Michael , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: Spanish
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/477996 , vital:78145 , https://doi.org/10.1111/ilrs.12240
- Description: Con datos de la primera ronda de un estudio longitudinal con métodos mixtos realizado en junio y julio de 2020 por la red WIEGO en colaboración con organizaciones de personas trabajadoras informales de doce ciudades, se evalúa el impacto de la actual crisis pandémica multidimensional (sanitaria, económica y de cuidados) en las responsabilidades de cuidado y el efecto resultante en los medios de vida y la seguridad alimentaria de personas trabajadoras informales de cuatro sectores. Un análisis de género del trabajo remunerado y del trabajo de cuidados no remunerado arroja luz sobre las características únicas del impacto de la actual recesión pandémica en la fuerza de trabajo informal del mundo.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Towards a more inclusive social protection: informal workers and the struggle for a new social contract
- Authors: Alfers, Laura C , Moussié, Rachel
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478239 , vital:78167 , ISBN 9781839108068 , https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108068.00012
- Description: The provision of social protection by the state in the form of social assistance, insurance and services is widely considered to be a key component of a social-justice-oriented social contract–the “implicit social agreement” which establishes the “guiding principles in building economic, social and political institutions”(Behrendt et al. 2019, Hickey 2011). The COVID-19 crisis revealed the extent to which informal workers remain unprotected by these provisions. Their exclusion significantly contributed to the severity of the economic crisis which accompanied the health crisis. At the same time the pandemic has also opened up the political space to (re) negotiate a social contract where protections hold a more central position. This chapter focuses on pre-COVID-19 attempts by organizations of informal workers to engage in dialogue and advocacy to shape such a social contract by transforming spaces for negotiation or creating new spaces for interactions with government at international, national and municipal levels. In doing so it emphasizes the idea of the social contract as less of a static entity than a shifting process of challenge and negotiation (Hickey 2011). The social contract, understood as a process, brings to the fore the question of power–who holds the power to shape the terms of engagement in such processes, who is considered a social actor worthy of having a seat at the table, to what extent do different actors hold the expertise and knowledge necessary to make change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022