Women seek work in the informal sector since it is relatively convenient to enter. Skills, training and other formalities are not required, providing an easy source of income for unskilled women. Unable to move from their familiar environment to an entirely new sector, women workers continue to work in the same category of informal jobs
The informal sector refers to unregistered enterprises.
Globally, two billion people aged 15 years and above work in the informal economy, representing 61.2 percent of global employment.
In Nepal, 84.6 percent of the employed population (7.1 million people) is engaged in informal work. It is estimated that there are three million women in Nepal's labour market, with 90.5 percent in the informal sector. A higher percentage of women workers are engaged in the informal economy than men, despite their lower absolute numbers. The informal sector is the highest employer of Nepal's workforce (62.2%), of which 66.5 per cent are females while 59.7 per cent are males, which does not include agriculture employability.
However, with globalisation, a 2018 research by the International Labour Organisation observes that the level of informality varies inversely with socio-economic development and educational attainment.
In Nepal, women workers in the informal sector work as piece-rate workers, self-employed workers, paid workers in informal enterprises, unpaid workers in the family business, casual workers without fixed employers, and sub-contract workers for formal enterprises.
Home-based workers, street vendors and construction workers make up the largest sub-groups of the informal women workforce.
Besides agriculture, women are more likely than men to be self-employed, unpaid participants in family businesses, industrial part-time workers and domestic workers.
A large number of women engaged in agriculture are also unpaid workers working on the farm of their families. Poverty, women's exclusion from formal labour markets, lack of education and their role in sustaining the family's livelihood are factors behind their participation in Nepal's informal economy.
Women seek work in the informal sector since it is relatively convenient to enter.
In the informal sector, skills, training and other formalities are minimal or nearly non-existent, providing an easy source of income for unskilled and inexperienced women. Due to lack of awareness of a better option or, more commonly, lack of sufficient initiative to move from their familiar environment to an entirely new sector, women workers continue to work in the same category of informal jobs.
Women have a hard time breaking into the organised sector's regimented framework.
Based on gender, there is discrimination in wages, nature and availability of work in Nepal. Because employers have the upper bargaining power, low-wage women are doomed to be exploited.
They are part of a society that is forced to work to survive.
The physical safety and health of women are jeopardised when they work as street vendors, domestic workers, home-based workers, construction workers and agricultural workers. Women have been found to spend long hours in unpaid household work. These obligations result in labour segregation, with women having to be self-employed or become home-based workers, where they often earn less than men.
Additionally, the COV- ID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown had an immediate economic impact on the informal workforce of Nepal. Women bore the brunt of job losses. The effect was mostly observed in Nepali women who held pink-collar jobs or did un-paid household work. Before the pandemic, almost 70 per cent of Nepalis were said to be employed in the informal economy. Majority of them are still unemployed, and most of the women are less likely to return to work.
When the government offered financial assistance in response to the crisis, most of the domestic and home-based female workers were ignored. According to an ILO study, during the first month of the pandemic, twice as many workers in the informal economy fell into poverty compared to pre-COV- ID-19 times.
Hence, identifying measures to improve the situation of informal female workers, particularly from the minority group, in dealing with the substantial risks they face is essential at the moment. Improving the condition of informal workers, particularly women, can include providing social protection such as health insurance, pensions and maternity benefits; improving occupational safety and reducing work hazards; enhancing access to child care; and forming informal workers' organisations, alliances and networks.
As we celebrated May Day on Sunday, we must have realised how much society undervalues women's labour and how much of it goes unnoticed. How many of us were aware that May Day originated with the workers' demands for an eight-hour working day? Despite the fact that "Mayday" has been celebrated for over a century, women in the informal economy are still deprived of equal pay and reward, social protection, health insurance, occupational health and safety, paid leave, networks, alliances, and legal contracts. We hear people urging the government to "boost engagement of women in the economy" so that they are not left behind. However, people remain oblivious to the precarious position of women in the global economy and the structural components that deprive women workers of their integrity and basic rights. Let us remember the women workers whose work is still invisible, whose worker rights are unprotected, and for whom "eight hours of labour, eight hours of recreation, and eight hours of rest" is still a distant dream.
Action should be taken in the strategic interests of women workers since the national income is also constituted from the earnings of female workers.
When women are compelled to earn less than men, and are left without social protection, the economy will indeed suffer. We must realise that by disregarding the female workers' role in the informal economy, we are ignoring a substantial number of contributors to the country's national GDP.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 06, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.