1 / 23

Social Protection for Informal Workers - a Perspective from South Asia

Social Protection for Informal Workers - a Perspective from South Asia. Ratna M. Sudarshan Director, Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi

weston
Download Presentation

Social Protection for Informal Workers - a Perspective from South Asia

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Social Protection for Informal Workers - a Perspective from South Asia Ratna M. Sudarshan Director, Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi Presented at Expert Group Meeting on Enhancing Social Services Policies to Strengthen Family Well-Being in Asia and the Pacific, 17-19 October 2007, Bangkok

  2. Outline • Informal Economy • Home based Work • Globalisation and Informality • Sources of Vulnerability • The next generation • Breaking the Cycle: Bidi Workers Welfare Fund • New Initiatives: NREGA, Social Security Bill • Strengthening Family Well being – best strategies?

  3. Defining informality • The informal economy: all production activities carried out by informal workers in organized and unorganized enterprises – small, unregistered enterprises; unprotected workers. • Statistically, definition of informal employment includes a) employment in the informal sector (as defined in 1993 by the ICLS); all unregistered (or unincorporated) enterprises below a certain size, including micro-enterprises owned by informal employers who hire one or more employees on a continuing basis; and own-account operations and • b) informal employment outside the informal sector.(ICLS 2003) THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

  4. Definition proposed by National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector Based on conceptual framework proposed by 17 th ICLS the NCEUS has proposed the following definition of informal employment: ‘unorganised/ informal employment is defined as consisting of casual and contributing family workers; self employed persons in unorganized sector and private households; and other employees in organized and unorganized enterprises not eligible either for paid sick or annual leave or for any social security benefits given by the employers’. THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

  5. Size of Informal Economy • 80 -90% of total employment in South Asia: • Contribution to GDP (eg India, 55 % - Raveendran 2006) % of non agricultural workers who are informal: • India, 1999-2000, all ages 67.3% • Pakistan, 2001-2, 10 yrs+ 64.6% • Bangladesh, 2002-3, 15 years + 62.4% • Nepal, 1998-99, 15 years + 73.3% • Sri Lanka, 2004, 10 years + 87% of total employment (Unni, Jhabvala, Sinha) THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

  6. Locating Women: Home Based Work, Unpaid Family Labour Contributing Family Workers as % of labour force Contributing Family Workers as % of employed population THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

  7. Home Based Work 80% of the 50 million home based workers in South Asia are women (ILO 2002) Place of Work: Own Home: HOME BASED WORK

  8. Home Based Work and the Family • Historical evolution from home based work for own or family use to production for the market • Role as ‘workers’ overlaps and is difficult to separate from role as ‘carer’ and in ‘provisioning for family’ HOME BASED WORK

  9. Globalization and informality • Informal employment not a creation of globalization: however there has been increase in last few years • Can distinguish between ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms: • ‘old’ – crafts, home based production of bidi, agarbathi, etc; vending, services like domestic workers; skills acquired within family and entry facilitated by family/ community • (some segments have contracted and others expanded with economic growth) GLOBALIZATION AND INFORMALITY

  10. ‘New’ informal employment – • Outsourcing, subcontracting, contractual employment linked to formal enterprises • Workers either shifted from regular to contract work or have had to accept informal work although the ‘normal’ expectation would have been regular employment • This group can include skilled/ well educated workers; reflects a pattern of growth in which decisions to expand output are de-linked from decisions to expand regular employment ‘Old’ - a group that has never had benefits; ‘new’- a group that has lost actual (or potential) benefits. GLOBALIZATION AND INFORMALITY

  11. Sources of vulnerability of informal workers Nature of Work: • Seasonality, low wages • Uncertainty of work/ fluctuating annual income • Lack of access to credit, technology, skill • Difficulty in anticipating growth trajectory • Health risks from work high, access to facilities low • Limited access to any social security (health, old age, maternity) Limited options: • Low levels of education/ formal skill training • Social networks predominantly family/ community centered SOURCES OF VULNERABILITY

  12. Household vulnerability • Dependence on one source of income = higher levels of vulnerability, associated with higher levels of poverty Eg home based workers with high input of unpaid family work ‘HBW’ households can be ‘family’ or ‘non-family’ units. ‘Family’ units - woman + husband mainly working for HBW ‘Non-family’ units – with at least one adult woman member of the household in ‘HBW’ and the male is not engaged in mainly working for ‘HBW’. In either case other family members may or may not be involved in HBW. (NCAER 2001) SOURCES OF VULNERABILITY

  13. Poverty + transmission of poverty to next generation • Non-enrolment/ early drop out – illiteracy • Only source for acquiring skills within family • Early entry into work • Lack of opportunities for acquiring other skills at later age NEXT GENERATION

  14. Contribution of children • Estimate of total time spent by children in home based work as a ratio to total time spent on this by the household (no allowance for differences in productivity, etc) • The average contribution, for three sectors (zardosi, bidi, agarbathi) together stands at over 13 %, ranging from a low of 8% in Bidi to 17% in zardosi work. (NCAER 2001) NEXT GENERATION

  15. Average Contribution of Children (in hours) to HBW Note: these calculations are based on data on the average number of persons in a household working in hbw and the average no. of hours spent by each person. NEXT GENERATION

  16. Approaches to Social Protection Across South Asia, two-pronged approach to social protection: • benefits/ services available for those who are ‘poor’/ below poverty line where there is no recipient contribution; • benefits available to workers in formal employment, which are of a contributory kind.

  17. India: social protection for informal workers • Labour laws/ Employees Insurance Scheme, Provident Fund • Welfare Funds • Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Scheme (EPFO) • Universal Health Insurance Scheme • Umbrella legislation for social security to unorganized workers • NREGA

  18. Breaking the cycle: Bidi Workers Welfare Fund: impact on children and women Differences are evident between bidi and other sectors (zardosi, agarbathi): • Relatively high share of HBW wages in total value of output (being organized?) • Greater use of government facilities by home based workers, difference in health seeking behaviour of women (entitlements through the welfare fund?) • Proportion of children in school significantly greater than in the other two sectors (scholarships offered by the Welfare Fund?) (As a result, the contribution of children in this sector is substantially lower than in the other two sectors) However, coverage of the welfare fund and other programmes for bidi workers is uneven. POLICY INITIATIVES

  19. Non government approaches and innovations • SEWA health insurance Micro insurance Family cover Maternity included Challenges Economic viability problematic Infrastructure for health services inadequate

  20. New initiatives – social protection/ social assistance a. NREGAb. Social Security for Unorganised Workers • Entitlements given to individual/ household as a right and by the Central government • Problems in implementation • Designing for the family – creches, productive assets created • Success in practice depends crucially on panchayat/ worker facilitation centres or in other words without awareness and the capability to plan and manage at the local level, the good intentions of the legislation are unlikely to be translated into equally good outcomes. POLICY INITIATIVES

  21. Entitlements and Institutions • ‘Pre conditions’ for success turn around the enhancement of local capacities • Citizenship based entitlements defined by the state: need to put equal attention on the institutions through which these programmes are refracted. Good outcomes depend on level of compliance • Prioritise areas to maximise impact POLICY INITIATIVES

  22. Strengthening Family well Being: Where are we at present? • Recognise rights of informal workers • Sources of vulnerability and priority needs: ‘non conventional’ security needs such as micro credit, skill upgradation and collective investments: habitat and housing • Register and increase access to existing health care, pensions, disability benefit, maternity benefit • Organising to better access available schemes; Strengthen bargaining power vis a vis contractors/ employers

  23. Strengthening Family well Being: Where are we at present? • Special vulnerabilities of ‘family units’ • Recognise and protect against impact of macro economic policies and growth processes • Assumption: that the system will deliver – if this is the problem, what do we do to deal with it? Values, norms and strategies

More Related