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Quality Childcare Services for Workers in the Informal Economy ILO and WIEGO Policy Brief No

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Quality Childcare Services for Workers in the Informal Economy ILO and WIEGO Policy Brief No Quality childcare services for workers in the informal economy ILO and WIEGO Policy Brief No. 1 1. INTRODUCTION The need for care services, including childcare, is growing and scope of the informal economy continues to grow, in response to changes in the labour market, family including in the Global North (ILO, 2018b). The ILO’s structures and demographic shifts. In 2015, 0.8 billion Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy children under six years old and 1.1 billion children Recommendation, 2015 (No. 204) foregrounds both the aged 7–15 years required care (ILO, 2018a). By 2030, an need to address gender inequalities in the labour market additional 0.1 billion children aged 6–14 years will require and create new decent work opportunities through care alongside a growing population of older persons. the provision of quality childcare. It draws on the ILO This represents both a challenge and an opportunity principles outlined in the Workers with Family Responsi- for labour markets today and in the future. The current bilities Convention, 1981 (No. 156) and its accompanying lack of affordable high-quality care services, combined Recommendation No. 165. with the prevalence of low-paid and informal care jobs, increases the burden and pressure on women and girls Recommendation No. 204 states, from low-income households and further reinforces inequalities, especially gender inequality (ibid.). Members should encourage the provision of and access to affordable quality childcare and other In no country in the world do men and women engage care services in order to promote gender equality in an equal share of unpaid care work. Though this can in entrepreneurship and employment opportunities be rewarding and fulfilling work, it can also come at a and to enable the transition to the formal economy. great cost to women’s participation in the labour market (Paragraph 21). and their access to income and social security throughout their lives. Women from low-income households are less Policies aimed at reconciling work and family, such as likely to have access to education and training and may childcare provision and parental leave, are proven to have have no choice but to seek work in the informal economy a positive impact on women’s labour force participation where entry barriers are lower than in the formal economy. and are essential to creating decent work opportunities for They will likely continue to undertake most of the unpaid women. These policies are necessary for redistributing, with care work in their homes even while they work to earn an the State, the unpaid care work done primarily by women. income. Combined, these factors contribute to women’s Access to public and affordable high-quality childcare concentration in the lowest-earning and most vulnerable services allows women and men to combine employment, forms of work within the informal economy. training, education, job search and volunteering with the care of their children. Quality childcare is also critical The latest ILO estimates indicate that close to 1 billion for young children’s education, health, nutrition and women find work in the informal economy. Rather development. Children of workers in the informal economy than declining, as some economists predicted, the size tend to have lower education and health outcomes due to poverty and are more likely to experience child labour. This brief will consider the constraints women workers Investing in public childcare services can lead to a triple in the informal economy face in both caring for their dividend by improving education and health outcomes young children and earning an income. It is the first among marginalized children, facilitating women’s in a three-part series that explores how the extension participation in the labour market, and creating new of labour rights, social protection and social services decent work opportunities for women and men in the can improve the lives of women workers in the informal care sector (UN Women, 2015a). economy and support their transition to the formal economy. 2. WOMEN WORKERS IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY Informal employment is defined by workers’ exclusion of their work through family or intra-household transfers, or insufficient coverage, in law or in practice, from labour derived from the profits of the enterprise or from the income and social protection regimes. Compared to workers open- of another person. In 2018, women are more than twice as ended, full-time employment, workers in the informal econ- likely to be contributing family workers compared to men, omy tend to be more frequently in non-standard forms of accounting for 16.6 per cent of female employment and only employment and are exposed to pervasive decent work 6.4 of male employment out of total global employment (ILO, deficits. Within the informal economy, employer-employee 2018d). The share of contributing family workers out of total relationships may be non-existent, blurred, or deliberately employment is as high as 42.8 per cent and 16.8 per cent for concealed. Though not all workers in the informal economy women and men in low-income countries, respectively. are poor, informal employment is characterized by low earn- ings and unregulated hours of work. Own-account workers refers to those who hold a self-em- ployed job and do not engage “employees” on a continu- In total, 2 billion people are in informal employment, rep- ous basis. Most own-account workers are in the informal resenting 61.2 per cent of global employment (ILO, 2018b). economy and are involved in subsistence activities such as Informal employment is a greater source of employment for street vending or waste picking (ILO, 2019). Though women men than for women globally (63 vs 58 per cent), in high- own-account workers tend to earn more than contributing (19 vs 18 per cent) and middle-income (69 vs 64 per cent) family workers, research shows that own-account work for countries due to women’s lower labour force participa- women is not a stepping stone to better employment oppor- tion rates. The share of women in informal employment tunities. Fewer women own-account workers in the informal (92 per cent), however, exceeds the share of men (87 per economy can expand their activities to become employers – cent) in low- and lower-middle income countries. In addition, representing only 1.7 per cent of total female employment, as in a majority of countries (56 per cent), the percentage of compared to 3.8 per cent among men (ILO, 2018d). women workers in informal employment exceeds the per- centage of men workers (Bonnet et al., 2019). In low- and middle-income countries, most women are employed as own-account or contributing family workers, The majority of workers in the informal economy are self-em- representing 82 per cent of all women in informal employ- ployed, own-account workers (45 per cent), contributing ment (Bonnet et al., 2019). This share is expected to decline family workers (16.1 per cent), and employers (2.7 per cent) with rising income levels. The pace of progress, however, is (ILO, 2018b). Within the informal economy, women are con- advancing too slowly in low-income countries to lead to a centrated at the base of the economic pyramid as industrial significant reduction in the shares of these two vulnerable outworkers, homeworkers, and contributing family workers groups. It is projected that by 2023 as many as 80 per cent of (Bonnet et al., 2019). Women and men who are contributing workers in such countries will still be own-account or contrib- family workers are considered as dependent workers (ILO, uting family workers (ILO, 2019). This suggests that the cur- 2018c). They work in an establishment operated by a rela- rent tensions between women workers’ income-generating tive, with too little degree of authority over its operation to activities and their responsibilities for childcare will remain be considered a partner. They do not receive regular pay- a barrier to gender and income equality unless actions are ments, such as a wage or salary, in return for the work per- taken to extend labour and social protections to workers in formed. They may benefit, however, from in-kind payments the informal economy. or receive irregular cash payments as a result of the outputs 3. CARE RESPONSIBILITIES AND THE IMPACT ON INCOME SECURITY There are many reasons women have been pushed into of available and affordable childcare. The most frequent the informal labour market: decreasing participation of unpaid care providers for children under the age of six are men in employment; limited skills; insufficient creation employed women (UN Women, 2015b). The time women of formal jobs; and erosion of labour protections. Glo- spend on unpaid care work substantially increases with a bally, changing family structures due to urbanization and child under age five (ILO, 2018a). In Ghana, in households migration mean that most of the working age popula- with a young child, women spend 107 more minutes on tion lives in nuclear family households with little access to unpaid care work per day than men, who spend only an care services (ILO, 2018a). Some women may still receive additional three minutes. The increase of time spent on support from extended family members living nearby. unpaid care work when there is a young child remains Older women may be able to provide some childcare, but marginal for men in most countries: six minutes in many are themselves working in the informal economy to Algeria, 36 minutes in Ethiopia and 65 minutes in China. earn a living – particularly if they do not have access to This attests to persistent gender norms and the need to a pension (ILO, 2017). A nuclear family structure in which also redistribute unpaid care work between women and extended family members are not present to care for chil- men within the household.
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