Description
In Mainstreaming Gender in Social Protection for the Informal Economy Naila Kabeer explores the gendered dimensions of risk, vulnerability and insecurity and hence the need for a gender perspective in the design of social protection measures. Her emphasis is on the informal economy because that is where the majority of women, and indeed the poor, are to be found while also being where official efforts for social protection are most limited.
The book will enhance understanding of the constraints and barriers that confine women to more poorly remunerated, more casual and more insecure forms of waged and self-employment, and of what this implies for women’s ability to provide for their families and cope with insecurity. Kabeer develops a framework of analysis that integrates gender, life course and livelihoods perspectives in order to explore the interactions between gender inequality, household poverty and labour market forces that help to produce gender-differentiated experiences of risk and vulnerability for the working poor. She then examines and assesses examples of social protection measures – from child allowances to pensions – in order to illustrate the necessity for a gender-analytical approach. She also stresses the importance of an organised voice for vulnerable and marginalised workers.
Finally, the author synthesises the main lessons that emerge out of the discussion and identifies gaps and exclusions in the social protection agenda.
Click here to listen to author Naila Kabeer discuss this book with Robin White on the Commonwealth Broadcast Association’s ‘Pick of the Commonwealth’ - April 2008 edition #29 (interview starts at 20.22 minutes).
Contents
Foreword
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Executive Summary
1. Risk, Vulnerability and Social Protection: International Perspectives
Introduction
What do we mean by social protection?
The World Bank and the social protection agenda
The ILO and the social protection agenda
Social protection and structural disadvantage in the labour market: alternative perspectives
2. Gender and Trends in the Global Labour Force: New and Persisting Forms of Vulnerability
‘Iceberg’ economics and women’s work
The ‘geography’ of gender and patterns of economic activity
The pursuit of flexible labour and the informalisation of work
The changing face of the female labour force
Continuities in the gender division of production and reproduction
Conclusion: the rationale for a gendered approach to social protection
3. Gender, Life Course and Livelihoods: Analytical Framework and Empirical Insights
Introduction
Institutions and social protection: an analytical framework
Gender and the structures of constraint: a three-dimensional model
Gender-releated constraints and labour market activity
Analytical insights and policy implications: a summary
Conclusion: revisiting the rationale for a gendered approach to social protection
4. Disrupting the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: Preventing Child Labour and Promoting Education
Introduction: child labour and the intergenerational transmission of poverty
Child allowances
School feeding programmes
Conditional cash transfer programmes
Childcare support for working women
Lessons from experience: gender and social protection for children
5. Alternative Approaches to Employment-based Social Protection
Supply-driven and demand-led approaches to employment generation
Who participates in public works programmes?
Gender-related constraints and programme design
Lessons from experience: gender and employment-generation programmes
6. Financial Services for Women in the Informal Economy: Protecting and Promoting Livelihoods
Introduction
Financial services for the poor: rationales, visions and strategies
Findings on microfinance outreach
Findings on the impacts of microfinance
Lessons from the field
7. Pensions and Transfers: Social Protection in Old Age
Gender, old age and insecurity
Contributory public pension schemes
Pension provision for the informal economy: examples from Latin America
Social pensions and transfer schemes in South Asia
Lessons from pensions and social transfers for the elderly and indigent
8. Organising for Social Protection in the Informal Economy: The Indispensability of Voice
Introduction: right, codes and standards
Gender and core labour standards: perspectives from the informal economy
Voice, visibility and collective action in the informal ec