09 the Contribution of Informal Work to Household Income

Table of contents

I. Introductio n .........................................................................................................................................3

II.

The attributes of textile weaving in Laos ........................................................................................4
Overview .....................................................................................................................................4 Women and textile weavin g ........................................................................................................4

The role of women in socio economic development in Laos as a breadwinne r ..............................5

Role of women in national workforc e .........................................................................................5 Role of women in family’s income earning ................................................................................5

The case study of women’s income earning from textile weaving in Vientiane capital ................6

Methodology ..............................................................................................................................6

2.1 2.2
III.
3.1 3.2
IV.
4.1

Abstract

The study of weaving textile as an alternative source of income of women in Vientiane capital has tried to illustrate the role of women in family income earning, particularly in the high competitive society at this present. It was found that many skilled weaving textile women are more likely to engage in the weaving led-income generation rather than other causal jobs for supplementary income earning of the family. Weaving textile can help weaver to deal with daily expenditure of her family such as, school fee

and food. The contribution of weaving income to the family’s income has made female weavers be

recognized as co-breadwinner of the family. The weaving textile activities are not only seen in a form of informal weavers (small scale textile weaving by independent and dependent weavers) but also a formal weavers (weaving textile enterprise). The two forms of weavers have share indifferent views in terms of advantages and problems facing regarding to their work. The paper also includes some policy recommendations before its conclusion which extracted from the research findings in order to introduce some problems solving and raise a concerned of relevant agencies.

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The contribution of informal work to household income:

the case of women’s weaving work in Vientiane capital

By Viengsavang THIPPHAVONG*

I. Introduction

Since the Lao government reformed the economy from a centrally planned to a market economy in 1986, the family income structure also has changed from one highly reliant on government subsidies to one that is more self-reliant. Many households became eager to pursue income earning activities by getting involved in small businesses which are largely of self-employed and informal nature. The families who engaged in this kind of informal work are often motivated by personal skills that some family members possess. For instance, a family may do handicraft work with the skills that the wife or the husband had inherited from her or his ancestors. Textile weaving is one such informal family business activity where the women account for almost the entire workforce in textile weaving in Laos. This is because textile weaving is a self-employed independent work, and it has the advantage of having less time pressures compared to other jobs. Weaving Lao traditional costumes, especially for women’s dresses seems to be the key product that gathers momentum in textile weaving in Laos. In these circumstances, textile weaving has become an important source of income for many families in both rural and urban areas, particularly for the families where husband has a low paid job and the wife does weaving at home to supplement the household income.

Weaving Lao traditional costumes has brought about a new feature of financial control in the family as women are now able to help their families or husbands to increase household income and thus improve family well-being. The case study on Sayaboury province (a province in Northern part of Laos) by Kyoko et.al (2000) found that many women in this province engaged in weaving activities generating substantial incomes for their families, while the husbands engaged in work such as raising livestock, feeding chicken and pigs, which earlier used to be women’s work, and now as result has provided more time for their wives for weaving. This has also given women a strong position in controlling family income and expenditure which implies that women have more power in the family. Therefore, weaving work contributes significantly to not only empower women but also to reshape gender equality in the household.

A research study on weaving as an alternative income source will help to illustrate the role of women and income earning of the family in Laos in the contemporary era of highly competitive society, where formal employment alone has become insufficient to meet the ever increasing costs of living of an average household. The study will examine the textile weaving activity of women in the Vientiane capital to illustrate how this activity has become an alternative source of family income for women. The case study will focus on two groups of people namely, the home-based textile weaver and the female entrepreneurs who run small and medium sized textile weaving businesses, and analyze the similarities and differences of problems faced by the two groups toward income earning of family. The former group is likely to be an informal activity – not register as a business entity, not pay taxes and not benefit from the legal contracts or effective coverage under the labor and social protection laws of the government. On the other hand, the latter group consists largely of formal enterprises that subject to business registration, tax payment, and be recognized as one of contributing factors to GDP of the country. Therefore, by demonstrating women’s role in family income earning through textile weaving, this case study will provide better understanding of how the benefits from textile weaving can empower women in the family and contribute to family expenditures, what difficulties and challenges textile weavers face, and finally what policy recommendations could be made to the government in order to help weavers to cope with any impediments they face.

* A senior economic researcher at the Economic Research Institute for Trade, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Lao PDR.

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II. The attributes of textile weaving in Laos 2.1 Overview

Textile weaving has been one of Laos’s ancient handicrafts. It has passed through three different eras of socio-economic changes - colonial period, Indochina war, and the New Economic Mechanism - that caused significant impacts on the cultural and economic landscape of the country. Textile weaving sector not only continues to exist but also has come to be recognized as one of the prominent sectors in Lao handicraft. These changes also mark the shift of weaving output distribution that used to be focusing on domestic markets to overseas ones. Shiraishi et.al (2002) demonstrated that after Lao government introduced market economy in 1986, the artisan crafts were keen to eye on export opportunities in foreign markets rather than solely dependent on domestic ones for product selling. It is also said that Lao craft products are increasingly accepted by foreign customers who value something unique and authentic such as handmade scarves, wall-hangings, table clothes, bed sheets etc. rather than machine-made products.

The existence and development of textile weaving in Laos are highly associated with cultural preservation of society and the government’s policy which required women to wear the national costume of Lao skirt to office and on cultural occasions. Wearing traditional dress in ceremonies and traditional events is still the preferred option for many Lao people, particularly women. In these circumstances, weaving activities are found in almost every part of Laos where women involve directly in every main woven textile production process namely, dyeing, designing and weaving. However, as Lao economy grew rapidly at an average of growth at 7% per annum¹since 2000 to 2010, the demand for factory workers in the urban areas increased similarly. As a result, many young men and women have left their homes for work in construction sites and garment factories. Consequently, textile weaving which used to be an alternative income source for off-farm activities in rural areas has now become a second choice for income earning of many young women in rural areas who would like to try new jobs and live in urbanized society. Moreover, the Lao economy has become increasingly integrated with the regional and the world economies together with significant reductions of trade and tariffs restrictions. This has resulted in an influx of cheap Western style clothes from neighboring countries into Lao clothing markets which with significant affects on the domestic handmade textile industry.

2.2 Women and textile weaving

It could be said that textile weaving is a traditional skill of many Lao women that passed on from generation to generation or from mother to daughter. Approximately, there were 65,000 of women engaged to textile weaving (DTIS Update 2012). Thus, women have become the main driving force and play a crucial role in making textiles while the men in the households contribute to some aspects of textile weaving work such as making the handloom, spinning cotton and silk yarn, and dyeing. Generally many weavers prefer to weave Lao skirts (Sinh) as it is in high demand and fetch good prices compared to other types of weaving products. Sinh consists of three different parts namely, Houa Sinh (waistband), Pheun Sinh (body or main part) and Tiin Sinh (hem). It is believed that there were more than thousand types of Sinh in Laos with different patterns and styles. However, by looking at the technique, materials used, and the people who weave and wear it, one could differentiate Sinh into approximately 27 types (see Annex table) that are made from cotton, silk or mixture of the two. Most weavers prefer to weave either the main part or just the hem (depending on

the weavers’ skills and experiences) in order to make authentic and high value products. Another

prominent value-added to the weavers’ output is the recognition and acceptance of customers who trust and prefer Lao handmade textiles rather than cheap imported machine-made ones.
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^{a & b}The World Bank group, online source on Laos’ GDP, unemployment and education data from 2000 to 2010.

To sum up, women could be seen as a key figure in textile weaving in Laos. They play a very important role to keep a hundred-year old textile weaving industry alive in the Lao society. The most

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popular type of textile weaving in Laos is making Sinh and there are thousands types of it in different patterns and styles.

III. The role of women in social economic development in Laos as a breadwinner
3.1 Role of women in national workforce

Traditional Lao culture used to describe woman as a person who plays the central role in managing the household, and caring for the family. The daughter helps the mother in cleaning, cooking and looking after younger brothers and sisters. This way of family arrangement of works is still being practised in many parts of the country, although the propaganda on gender equality in society is highly regarded in national policy. This is also true in the present world as women still contribute almost 90% of the household and care work of the family which are categorized as unskilled and unpaid works (Smales 2010, p.11 and D’Souza 2010, p.5). It is observed that today Lao women increasingly engaged in the national labor market and contribute to country’s socio-economic development. According to the World Bank (2012)^bunemployment of Lao women decreased significantly from 3% in 1995 to 1% in 2005; and the ratio of female to male primary, secondary and tertiary enrolment substantially grew from 1990 to 2010. Furthermore, the labor participation rate of females aged above 15 years remained at a high rate between 79% to 80% from 1990 and 2009 respectively.

According to the Laos country report (2010) of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare for the second regional seminar on industrial relations in the ASEAN region, the total Lao labor in the three main sectors (agriculture, industry and service sectors) amount to about 652,000 of which 343,748 are permanent workers. However, female workers accounted for only 13% of it. By this percentage we can infer that Lao women accounted for only a small number of formal workforce in the country compared to men. This finding is also in line with the statistical data on time-used survey which showed that women spent less time in employed work than men in a day, which were 0.3 hours and 0.8 hours respectively (LECS4, 2009 p.77). Therefore, it could said that while there has been progress in Lao women’s participation in the national workforce, many of them still are engaged in hazardous or casual work for income earning for the family which could be harmful to their health.

3.2 Role of women in family’s income earning

It was seen that in the contemporary era of high competitive society, the contribution of women in generating household’s income is necessary and important. In this perspective one cannot deny that women contribute a significant proportion or even sometimes completely to family’s income. As the socio-economic development grew rapidly in recent years, it brought about changes not only in social perspective on women working but also on the nature of women’s work in Laos. For instance, by comparing the table 5.1 of LECS3 and LECS4, we find that generally both females and males engaged in paid-work had substantially increased from 5% in 2002/2003 to 14% in 2007/2008. In addition, the table 5.2 (compared between LECS3 and LECS4) also shows that women gradually spent fewer hours on agriculture, forestry and fishing which were down from 72.6% to 61.1% respectively. Less time spent on agricultural activities and more on other economic activities by women could mean that women’s occupation tendency had steadily moved away from high dependency on unpaid works to paid works as a source of income earning. However, there are still many women employed in unpaid work that is likely to be related to home-based activities such as, retail trade, domestic work and handicraft. This is because the characteristics of those activities in fact still revolve around social norm on family responsibility of women that they have to take responsibility for childcare and household work; particularly married women tend to find some work to do at home or some independent work to earn an extra income for the family. Table 6.2 (compared between LECS3 and LECS4) show that the time spent by women in paid work remained the same, i.e.0.3 hours during the two surveys.

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IV. The case study of income earning from textile weaving by women in the Vientiane Capital
4.1 Method

The case study makes use of both secondary and primary data. To understand the role of women in textile weaving to supplement family income, the consequences of weaving work on empowerment women, and the impediments of textile weaving in Laos, in-depth interviews of 60 samples consisting of 10 textile weaving enterprises and 50 home-based weavers were conducted during January and February 2012 within 4 central districts, namely Sikhottabong, Chanthabury, Sisattanak and Saysettha in the Vientiane Capital. The respondents were randomly selected according to a snowball technique. It is believed that this approach, in combination with the primary data and direct observations, will make data more reliable and useful for analysis. In addition, for a better understanding of women’s income earning from textile weaving, this study will examine two types of weaving Lao skirt (Sinh) namely, cotton Sinh and silk Sinh in order to observe the costs of and profits from textile weaving by women in 4 sample districts.

Prior to the data collection, a semi-structured survey was prepared in English for gaining feedback and comments from project coordinator and supervisor and then translated into Lao in order to ensure a better understanding during the interviews. Two different survey forms were used: the first one was designed for owners of textile weaving enterprises and the second one for home-based weavers. In order to examine the time management in a day by textile weaving women, the timeused survey form was used to get answers from weavers at the time of the interviews. Furthermore, the extensive notes were also taken during the interviews for subsequent use in the analysis. Consequently, the data and the information obtained from the survey were found to be sufficiently reliable and in conformity with expectations of existing literature.

4.2 Finding and discussion

To what extend textile weaving by women in urban area such as the Vientiane Capital is becoming an optional work for income earning of either uneducated or unemployed women? Having said that Textile weaving is a type of home based work in Laos, particularly in a house that already has skilled textile weavers, or has migrants from the Northern part of Laos skilled in textile weaving. Weaving textiles, particularly Sinh (Lao skirt) is the most favorable type of textile that is woven by weavers with traditional handloom in the Vientiane Capital. Textile weaving is also regarded as a time consuming work even though it is an independent work of many married women where pressure doesn’t matter much. In addition, it also requires weavers to pay a lot of attention and have much patience for each piece of work. Nevertheless, textile weaving is rewarding employment for many women in this work as there is a strong market demand for Lao Sinh throughout the year, especially during the Lao wedding season which normally takes place from October to March.