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PERU: Women
Workers Forced into Informal Economy
By Maritza Asencios
LIMA (IPS) - In Peru, 51 percent of
all jobs are generated by the informal
economy, a sector that has a female face, as
more than 60 percent of the women workers in
the country are forced into informality,
with only 15 percent having health coverage
and a mere four percent enjoying retirement
benefits.
These figures are provided by the
International Labour Organisation (ILO),
whose gender issues coordinator for the
Andean sub-region, María Bastidas, explained
to IPS that women in the informal sector are
concentrated in the self-employed and
micro-enterprise segment - working as street
vendors or at home - or as temporary
agricultural labourers, domestic workers, or
doing unpaid work in the family home.
Bastidas - who is also president of the NGO
Community Development Association, and in
May 2008 published a study on the subject
entitled "Informal Women Workers in Peru" -
said that the leading reasons for the
predominant presence of women in the
informal economy is the gap between labour
laws and actual working conditions, the
shortage of formal employment, the low
levels of investment, and the lingering
effects of the crises of the 1980s and
1990s, which prompted the emergence of
so-called "survival economies."
This is compounded by the constant flow of
rural migrants into the cities and a
cultural and educational problem that
prevents women from participating fully in
modern economic activities, said this expert
with the ILO, whose Latin American regional
headquarters are located in the Peruvian
capital.
This South American country has had longs
periods without significant investment in
production and, consequently, a negligible
demand for new workers, while during times
of increased investment, formal employment
did not accompany that growth, due to the
type of activities that attracted capital.
The negative impacts of this structural
model were aggravated in the 1980s with an
economic crisis that left tens of thousands
of workers out of a job, forced many
companies to close down and pushed more and
more Peruvians into informal labour.
Peru, a country of 28.7 million people, has
an economically active population of 10.6
million, 35.4 percent of which are women,
according to the latest figures.
"Twenty years ago, I was working at a
hospital, but I had two little girls and
nobody to leave them with. So I had to quit
and because of my two kids, I couldn’t even
find work as a domestic," Gloria Solórzano,
in charge of women’s issues at the Unified
Workers’ Confederation (CUT), told IPS.
"Now I say proudly that I’m a street vendor:
I’ve been working for 15 years in La
Victoria, outside the wholesale market" in
Lima, she said.
"Because they have a larger share of family
responsibilities, it’s not easy for women to
find employment. Which is why they turn to
informal work. They pick through trash,
drive a taxi or motorcycle taxi, or do all
sort of odd jobs, and they work as
domestics," the trade unionist said.
One of the informal occupations is as street
vendors, where women of all ages work, she
said - from elderly women to young mothers
working with their children at their sides.
"They’re not in the street because they like
it. There’s just no work and they have to
feed their children and give them an
education," Solórzano said.
Raising awareness for change
For Solórzano, it is essential to raise
public awareness - in society, the
government, the media and state and
non-governmental organisations - about the
urgent changes that need to be made in the
labour market if the country truly aims to
guarantee decent work.
"The government must act firmly to create
more jobs, but not just any jobs - decent
jobs," she underlined, suggesting that this
may only be possible with a new
constitution, because the one in force,
inherited from the rightwing government of
Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), is a barrier
to changes in the labour market.
Besides the lack of jobs, women are also
turning to informal labour because many
companies force them to work 12-hour or even
longer days, and they often pay less than
minimum wage. In the informal sector, women
have more opportunities and greater
flexibility to reconcile work and family
responsibilities.
"If their labour rights were respected, many
of us women would choose to work in the
formal sector. But even if we did want a
formal job, there aren’t any, because this
country has violated labour laws, which are
ignored," Solórzano said.
A study by the Inter-American Development
Bank (IADB) released in October backs
Solórzano’s position: in Peru the wage gap
between men and women of the same age and
identical educational level stands at 19.4
percent, more than two percentage points
above the Latin American average of 17.2
percent.
"Decent work for women doesn’t exist, and
this is especially true in Peru. Women’s
work is invisible, they still think we don’t
exist as workers," Solórzano said.
The CUT leader said formalising informality
also requires training so that women can
establish small enterprises and obtain
support to market their products.
According to economist Edgar Galván, former
general director of the Production
Ministry’s Bureau of SMEs and Cooperatives,
"more and more women are heading SMEs,
because they have the right characteristics,
such as management skills and
creditworthiness. Women have an edge that
gives them greater access to micro-loans."
He said that 70 percent of Peru’s SMEs are
informal and, as a result, the sector has
the same percentage of informality in
employment. These are companies with a great
number of unpaid family workers, most of
them women.
SMEs headed by women are concentrated in the
services and commerce sectors (60 percent),
and there are few in transformation and
industry sectors.
According to Galván, it is vital to train
the women who head these economic units so
that they can turn them into real
businesses, because they weren’t conceived
as a business opportunity, but rather as a
way to save their families from hunger.
"They’re a response to the lack of formal
jobs, but they also evidence a problem in
our education, because we’re educated to
become employees, not businesspersons;
that’s why we lack business savvy," Galván
said.
"Women who are entrepreneurs or direct SMEs
have to realise that they need to open up
spaces for training and technical
assistance, and become more business savvy,"
she concluded.
From dominated to leaders
If there’s a female-dominated economic
sector in Peru, that’s the informal trade
sector, 80 percent of which is in the hands
of women. Although there’s a great variety
of women working in this sector, the
majority of them are heads of household,
regardless of their age or marital status.
This discovery led Solórzano six years ago
to get together with 11 other women vendors
from various districts of Lima and form a
Network of Women Street Vendors, which
includes traders who sell their wares in
city markets, bus stops and country fairs.
Today, it has spawned 16 different networks
in the capital and surrounding areas, and
another four in different provinces outside
the capital. And it’s still growing.
The network began in Lima's industrial
district, and some of the members started to
lead the area’s labour associations. One of
these women is Rita Maguiña, who is
currently president of the confederation of
street vendors and the Network’s
organisation secretary.
"I didn't set out to become a leader, but
when I saw how women were harassed by
authorities and even by union leaders, I
decided to get involved, give my support and
change things. I said to myself, if women
are the majority, then, why is it that men
are in charge?" Solórzano said.
"Our conscience leads us to want to change
the way things are. There are so many women
selling in the streets that I know I need to
fight for change in this country. Not for us
- who may not live to see it - but for our
children," she said.
"Behind every woman there's a home. We want
to have a home with a decent job, a home
where our children can grow up in peace, for
our country's future. We need to do
something to end hunger in this country,"
Solórzano said.
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