Gender
Women tend to make up the greatest portion of the informal sector, often ending up in the most erratic and corrupt segments of the sector. Sixty percent of female workers in developing countries are employed by the informal sector. The reasoning behind why women make up majority of the informal sector is two-fold. Firstly, it could be attributed to the fact that employment in the informal sector is the source of employment that is most readily available to women. Secondly, a vast majority of women are employed from their homes (most likely due to the large number of women who are involved in care work) or are street vendors, which both are classified in the informal sector Furthermore, men tend to be overrepresented in the top segment of the sector and women overpopulate the bottom segment. For example, very few women are employers who hire others and more women are likely to be involved in smaller scale operations. Labor markets, household decisions, and states all propagate this gender inequality. The gender gap in terms of wage is even higher in the informal sector than the formal sector
Read more about this topic: Informal Economy
Famous quotes containing the word gender:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“... lynching was ... a woman’s issue: it had as much to do with ideas of gender as it had with race.”
—Paula Giddings (b. 1948)