Neoliberal capitalism has become a globalized machine, used to exploit black and brown women’s labor under the guise of informality to perpetuate a narrative of “respectability” of speculative economics across the global.

Informal work has not only persisted on an international scale since the 1970s, but has also expanded and appeared in new guises in the context of globalization, neo-liberalism and cross-border and rural-urban migration, all of which are highly gendered processes (Bach, 2003; Carr and Chen, 2002; Chant and McIlwaine, 1995; Chen et al., 2004; ILO 2002b, 2007a; Valenzuela, 2005). While more women now participate in paid employment than at any other time in history, labour markets across all geographical regions are sexsegregated with women “concentrated in lower quality, irregular and informal employment” (Heintz, 2006: 1; see also Abramo, 2003; El-Solh, 2003; FernándezPacheco, 2003a, b; Silveira and Matosas, 2003; Valenzuela, 2005; Xaba et al., 2002). As increasing global integration and competition has fuelled a “race to the bottom” in which multinational corporations may relocate numerous times in search of increasingly cheaper labour (see for example, Chan, 2003; Jauch, 2002), women in the informal economy find that they are the “weakest links” in global value chains. Poor women workers of the Global South, as well as female migrant workers in a range of international contexts, generally fare worst of all (Carr and Chen, 2002: 11; see also Chakravarty et al., 2006; Kaplinsky, 2000; Mehrotra and Biggeri, 2002; Perrons, 2004, 2005; Rossignotti, 2006). Women remain concentrated in “invisible” areas of informal work, such as domestic labour piece-rate homework, and assistance in small family enterprises, which offer precarious employment status, low, irregular or no remuneration, little or no access to social security or protection, and limited ability to organize to ensure the enforcement of international labour standards and human rights (Abramo and Valenzuela, 2006; Carr and Chen, 2002; Fernández-Pacheco, 2003a, b; Reinecke et al., 2006; Vega Gramunt, 2004). Poor women employed in the informal economy also face a number of serious health and safety risks, including dangerous working conditions, gendered violence and increased susceptibility to HIV/AIDS (Ambert et al., 2007; Chant and McIlwaine, 1995; Nelson, 1997). They must also often contend with deficient infrastructure and a range of time and space constraints on their productivity (Lund and Srinivas, 2000; see also Chant, 1996, 2007c; Kantor, 2002; Lessinger, 1990; Lopez-Estrada, 2002; Miraftab, 1996; Vera-Sanso, 1995, 2006b). Gendered earning differentials in the informal economy mirror, and in many cases surpass, those in the formal sector (Abramo and Valenzuela, 2006; FernándezPacheco, 2003b; Silveira and Matosas, 2003), due to both vertical and horizontal segregation in employment and continuing gendered inequalities associated with women’s unpaid reproductive work (Lund and Srinivas, 2000; see also Boulde, 2006; Chant, 2006, 2007a, c; Gates, 2002; Perrons, 2005). In this context, the complex relationships between informality, gendered relations of power and poverty require careful analysis. This discussion paper provides a review and analysis of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) research on women, gender and the informal economy. In particular, it compares and contrasts analytical and methodological frameworks used in various studies; identifies research gaps and directions for future research; and pulls out key findings that may assist concerned ILO units in taking action and formulating policy directions. The report has been commissioned by the ILO’s GENDER, DECLARATION and INTEGRATION departments as a follow-up document for the ILO Tripartite Symposium on the Informal Economy, held in Geneva in November 2007. Both the paper and the symposium are linked to ILO’s Decent Work Agenda and the promotion of International Labour Standards, including the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998) and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Ministerial Declaration on Decent Work (2006). While drawing on wider academic and policy sources to theoretically and empirically ground and exemplify key analytical and methodological issues pertinent to women, gender and the informal economy, the bulk of paper has been prepared on the basis of a review of ILO research and policy documents (in both English and Spanish), as well as a select number of informal interviews with key officials conducted at ILO headquarters in Geneva in September 2007. 1 An indicative assessment of ILO research on gender and informal economy is provided here. However, it is hoped this report will serve as the basis for more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of, and action on, gendered dimensions of informality in the future. The focus is on the relationships between gender and informal work in the Global South, making links to industrialized and transition countries where possible, and pertinent. In line with current ILO orthodoxy, the term “informal economy” (rather than “informal sector”) is used to indicate the need to include both own account workers and wage workers in discussion and analysis of informal work. This term also signals how informal work cross-cuts a range of sectors and areas of work, and frequently overlaps with work within the formal economy. Indeed, informal and formal work should not be understood as dichotomous, but rather as intimately linked. Furthermore, it should be acknowledged that, given that formal wage labour has never been relevant to more than 50 per cent of the population in many parts of the Global South, the categories of “formal” and “informal” may not always be the most relevant or useful categories of analysis (Vaillancourt-Laflamme, 2005: 26). “Gender” is, within this paper, understood as a relational concept, which is constituted differently across various social, cultural and geo-political contexts in and through its interaction with other axes of social differentiation, including “race”, ethnicity, sexuality, class, religion, age and ability, among other variables. While the analysis focuses mainly on how informality affects poor women in a range of international contexts, a critical gender analysis necessitates paying attention to gendered relations of power which position and affect different groups of women and men in different ways. Strategies for achieving gender justice with respect to informality must thus address “the pervasive gendered constructs, roles and power relations which structure the wider social context” in which different forms of work arise (ibid.). The paper begins with an overview of the ILO’s work on gender and the informal economy, linking it to its wider Decent Work Agenda. It then considers certain analytical and methodological approaches employed in ILO studies, assessing their overarching strengths and limitations. The remainder of the report is dedicated to a more detailed review and assessment of ILO studies across a range of themes, linked to the ILO’s key areas of research and technical cooperation.