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Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Martha Alter Chen, Joann Vanek, and Marilyn Carr, Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction: A Handbook for Policy-makers and Other Stakeholders (London: Commonwealth Secretariat 2004)

MAINSTREAMING INFORMAL Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction provides valuable evidence and direction for improving many aspects of informal employment relations, particularly for women living in poverty. Martha Alter Chen, Joann Vanek, and Marilyn Carr's central argument is that in recent poverty discussions, importantly in the Millennium Development Goals, an essential aspect of poverty is left out of the debate— employment, especially informal employment. They call this omission the "missing link," mapping the link out and joining it together with a concern for gender issues and the changing nature of informal employment into strategies for poverty reduction.

In tackling this issue Chen et al. direct the book towards a very specific audience, the over-scheduled policy-makers and other stakeholders in the poverty debate. The authors provide the necessary background to the historical debates surrounding informal employment. Also, they examine competing theoretical perspectives — neoclassical economics, gender analysis, and informal labour market analysis — on the interconnections between globalization, growth, and poverty, exposing the theories' strengths and weaknesses. The focus on the audience of policy-makers and other stakeholders limits part of the book's appeal as the discussion of the theoretical perspectives is not new to readers with a background in the globalization debates. This limitation also extends the book's appeal past the busy policy-maker; the text would be useful for those just entering into the globalization debates because of its clear history and explanation of the key theoretical perspectives deployed. However, the authors' sustained focus on issues of gender and informal employment offers a useful argument and evidence to an audience already engaged in the globalization debates, not just policy-makers. Their orientation gives nuance and context to debates that rarely address the lived experiences of the working poor, women in particular, in a detailed and contextual manner.

The book is organized into five chapters. In Chapter One, "Employment: The 'Missing Link' in the Poverty Debates," Chen et al. provide a brief history of the growth-poverty debates, then provide definitions of key terms such as poverty and globalization. They make their case for the inclusion of employment into the debate, making the distinction between the absolute level of employment and the nature of employment as key to understanding the depth of poverty for most working poor. They state that the working poor cannot get out of poverty due to being primarily employed in the informal economy which translates into lower incomes, higher financial risks, and higher rates of social exclusion. By refocusing the terms of the poverty debate to examine the substantive issue of poverty and quality of employment, the authors present a useful perspective from which to approach developing understandings of informal work.

Chapter Two, "Informal Employment, Gender and Poverty," notes discovery of the informal economy as a persistent aspect of modern capitalism in 1972 via fieldwork from the Kenya employment mission. They map the three dominant schools of thought on the informal sector: the dualist school for whom the informal sector is separate from the formal economy; the structuralist school that regards the informal sector as subordinate to large cost-reducing capitalist firms; and the legalist school for whom the informal economy consists mainly of micro-entrepreneurs who wish to avoid time and costs of formalizing their work. Chen et al. use a broadened definition of informal employment that includes all work without formal contracts, worker benefits, or social protection. This broadened definition of informal aids in examining informal employment in developed nations as well as in developing nations. They note a high degree of gender segmentation as one moves down the status ladder of informal employment, with the lower rungs characterized by less pay, less access to rights, and more likely to be occupied by women. These statements are backed with empirical evidence from several different countries as well as a detailed case study on the global horticulture value chain.

Chapter Three, "The Changing World of Work: Linking Economic Reforms- Gender-Poverty," has three key sections. The first maps the impact of economic shifts on poverty and gender relations, and analyses what these changes mean for the informal economy. The second provides the necessary empirical evidence for their claims regarding the positive or negative impact of economic reforms and the quality of those reforms. The authors demonstrate that while there have been new economic opportunities created the terms and conditions of the employment created often exclude the working poor from taking advantage of them. This chapter exposes how those in the informal economy, including women, are integral to the economy of their countries and the global economy. Finally, the third section explores the changing nature of work and its impact on the informal economy.

In Chapter Four, "Decent Work for Informal Workers: Promising Strategies and Examples," a plethora of evidence is provided detailing the various pathways of responses to trade liberalization and its associated risks and opportunities. Using the four pillars of the International Labour Organization [ILO] Decent Work Agenda, Chen et al. mark out four policy goals: promoting opportunities, securing rights, promoting protection, and promoting voice. The highlight of this chapter is the sheer diversity of examples and strategies for assisting the informally employed. This chapter is one of the book's greatest strengths; unlike many critiques of globalization and economic restructuring, it identifies ground-level solutions and strategies for improving the lives of the working poor. Also of importance is the necessary supporting strategy of collecting statistics and improving the existing methods of data collection on the informal economy to make the contributions of this sector visible to policymakers.

Lastly, Chapter Five, "Informal Employment and Gender: A Strategic Policy Approach," starts from the necessary assumption that all policies affect the informal economy and that policies affect men and women differently. Chen et al. call for informed and comprehensive policies, created by various actors and the informal workers themselves. They reiterate that the informal economy is not just people trying to avoid government regulations and that this sector will not disappear; so it needs to be addressed in formal policies. The four goals previously mentioned translate into particular policy strategies: the promotion of labour-intensive growth, the need for protection of informal workers from market shifts, the improvement of the quality of their jobs, increased market access for the self-employed, protection of migrant workers, and social protections for informal workers. The policy process should aim to mainstream the importance and concerns of informal workers in a gender sensitive manner that is context specific, as well as participatory and inclusive. There are four key policy areas that need to be addressed: macroeconomic policies, the regulatory environment, labour policies, and social protection policies.

The overall strength of this book is its sustained attention to informal employment and gender issues tied together with a consideration of poverty issues all of which is backed up with strong empirical evidence from across the globe.


Nickela Anderson University of Alberta

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