Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
key
points
•
The informal sector, or informal economy as it is more recently
known, is an important provider of livelihoods for many workers in
the global South, and it accounts for over 50 per cent of
non-agricultural employment in many countries of the global South.
•
The sector refers to a heterogeneous group of activities and relation-
ships that lack legal recognition, regulation and social protection.
•
Definitions of the informal economy are highly contested but concep-
tual approaches towards the informal sector have evolved from a
focus on the
enterprise
to more recent
worker-focused
perspectives
that encompass unregulated and vulnerable workers in the global
economy.
•
Recent perspectives, which suggest that there are multiple gendered
divisions cutting across traditional informal-formal sector divides,
have argued that women are often concentrated in the lower eche-
lons of the economy. Research has also highlighted the importance
of agency and generation in understanding women's informal work.
•
Policies to support the informal sector include micro-credit and
small business development, the ILO's decent work agenda and ini-
tiatives by Non-Governmental Organizations and Civil Society to
engender social protection (see Chapter 5.2).
141
further
reading
A good starting point is Sylvia Chant's essay, 'The informal sector and
employment' (2008), in Desai and Potter's
Companion to Development
Studies
, which provides an overview of recent trends and policy initia-
tives. A more in-depth analysis of past and present concepts of the
informal sector is provided by Lloyd-Evans' article, 'Geographies of the
contemporary informal sector: gender, employment and social protec-
tion' (2008) in
Geography Compass
. An extensive collection of recent
academic articles and policy research on the gendering of the informal
economy, including work by Martha Chen, can be downloaded from
WIEGO:
Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing
(www.wiego.org).
