IDRC Project Number: 103840

Project Timeline: September 2006 - February 2008

IDRC Budgetary Contribution: CAD $275,000

In the Arab region, unemployment is on the rise and is currently in the double-digit figures for most of the countries in the region. Given the shrinking public sector, employment options in the economies of the region and the slow gains in viable private sector alternatives, most economies are now facing growing informality in employment, with unemployed and underemployed women and men throughout the region flocking to the informal economy. While the informal economy may have afforded the governments some short-term relief by absorbing many of the officially unemployed, these are jobs without economic security and effective legal protection. 

 

Furthermore, there is a significant gender gap in earnings within the informal economy, with women earning less on average than men. Most employers and self-employed are men and most industrial outworkers and home workers are women and women tend to earn less than men in own account and wage work. This is heightened in the Arab world, where gender inequality in the labour market persists through occupational segregation, wage gaps, relatively higher unemployment rates, over-representation in the informal economy, inadequate social protection, and economic insecurity. Meanwhile, the existing notions of “women’s place in the home” are beginning to be challenged by pressures of poverty and increased exposure to education and information among young women and men. 

 

Yet, the informalization of the labour market and its gender and poverty dimensions are not being sufficiently captured in official statistics, laws, policies and programs including those around extension of social protection to informal economy workers. Researchers and key institutional players are not always current on their knowledge on the application of evolving rights based approach to gender and informal economy work. Moreover, a gender-responsive rights based methodology is much needed in how researchers approach the informal economy in the region, and to move away from the much used women entrepreneurship discourse. This gender-based approach also needs to be translated to policy dialogue, direct action programs, and focused research and statistics on gender, poverty and employment in the informal economies of the region.

 

 

This project aims to promote decent work for women and men in the informal economy as a key pathway to reduce poverty, to address gender inequality, and to contribute to sustainable human development in the Arab region. The project aims to present evidence that a less segregated labour force would benefit women in the first place and improve the total output as an ultimate end. The project will examine how political, economic and social protection systems have been shaped around the informal economy in the selected Arab countries.

Through gender analysis of the informal economy, this project will examine how women access resources and opportunities in the public and private spheres; how they participate in decision-making; how they benefit from goods and services offered in societal settings; and how particular social protection mechanisms and plans can affect women and men differently.  A gender analysis will serve mainly to illustrate the cost and benefits for both men and women and to promote decent work that will suit the actual needs and demands of women.

A rights framework will be utilized throughout the project. These rights include rights to health, control over income and skills; rights to use entitlements to produce for one’s own consumption or for sale; and rights to goods, services, and financial transfers from the state. The project will examine political and economic environment for establishing the entitlements that are attached to citizenship.

 

The overall objective of this project is to promote decent work for women and men in the informal economy as a key pathway to reducing poverty and gender inequality, and to achieving sustainable human development in Arab States.

The specific objectives are as follows:

 

Given the scarcity of data and analysis on the gender dimensions of the informal economy in the Arab region, this project is less focused on intensive research, and more on developing a research agenda informed by a gender and rights-based approach that will be applied by local researchers, economists, and policy-makers. The project will engage in a degree of research and training that will be used to set the stage for a critical analysis of key questions relevant to an improved understanding of the gendered nature of poverty and employment in the informal economy in the region.

Preliminary, background research based on existing literature, survey work and interviews with key informants will be used to develop a background paper.  The Experts Group Meeting and the Advisory teams will further develop the key issues and questions on the two main foci of the project, informal economy statistics and social protection policies.  For each country case study, there will be a statistical review of existing labour force and household data to develop information on the informal economy in each national setting. 

 

The following are the planned outputs for this project:  a background paper on gender and the informal economy in the Arab region, expert group and advisory team meetings, a stakeholder workshop on social protection, a mapping exercise of informal economy activities in each country case study, five papers on social protection, training materials, and policy briefs.

The outputs from this project will inform the training of central statistical bureau staff members and social security institutions from the case study countries to include consideration of informal economy workers in their activities and policy processes.  Center For Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTAR) will also be targeted in order to strengthen their capacity with issues of gender, poverty and employment in the informal economy.

 

 

Simel Esim

International Labour Organisation (ILO)

4, route des Morillons | Ch-1211 Geneva 22 | Switzerland

Tel.  961-1-752400 ext.110| Fax.  961-1-752406 | esim@ilo.org | www.ilo.org

 

 

Rawwida Baksh

Program Leader

Women's Rights and Citizenship

International Development Research Centre

rbaksh@idrc.ca