Unit 2: Gender issues in the world of work

Emerging gender issues in the Asia Pacific region

Women in atypical forms of work

In recent decades, structural adjustment and economic reform in both industrialised and developing countries has witnessed the loosening of rules and collective agreements that are thought to constrain labour mobility and the responsiveness of wages to market conditions. This has resulted in the limited creation of stable, full-time wage employment. The bulk of new jobs has tended to be in atypical, often precarious, forms of work.

Asian women’s participation in the labour force has continued to rise, but the nature of their participation has changed significantly. Instead of permanent, regular, full-time employment, more and more women are going into

• temporary or casual work
• multiple part-time jobs
• homeworking, subcontracting or "putting-out" systems
• self-employment in microenterprises and small firms in the informal sector

Are these new trends beneficial or harmful for women in the Asia-Pacific region? One view is that the growth of atypical forms of work reflects the flexible employment relations needed to allow enterprises to adjust or adapt efficiently to the changing economic environment. It has also been argued that the "non-standard" forms of work meet the needs of women workers.

It is true that some women choose such work because of the flexible hours, greater compatibility with family responsibilities, and relative ease of entry. But for growing numbers of women, this type of work is involuntary; they go into such employment because no other opportunities are open to them. These atypical or non-standard forms of work tend to expose women to job and income insecurity and a real risk of marginalisation in the labour market. Such work also tends to be associated with:

• low pay
• little or no wage benefits
• lack of rights
• lack of social protection
• limited training opportunities
• few career prospects

Informalisation or casualisation of labour relationships has also meant the distancing of both the state and the enterprise from their social responsibilities to workers.

In Asia, women dominate in hawking or trading activities. More recently, there has been an increase in their involvement in micro or small scale production and home-based activities, as self-employed or piece rate workers. Here are some country-specific examples:

• ILO labour flexibility surveys in the Philippines and Malaysia have shown that the greater the degree of labour casualisation, the higher the proportion of total employment consisting of women and the more vulnerable these women are to exploitative conditions.
• In Pakistan, women displaced from large-scale manufacturing have been pushed increasingly into informal sector subcontracting especially in garments, unpaid family work and very poorly paid domestic service.
• In Indonesia, more than a fifth of all women in the workforce are in trading although this is the least lucrative of self-employment activities.

These trends represent important challenges for development planners. In deciding upon appropriate action, it is important to answer the following questions related to the quality and quantity of women’s atypical forms of work:

• Are flexible or atypical forms of work what women need, want or prefer, or do they represent jobs women go into because they have no other choices?
• Do such increases in employment benefit women, or do they merely benefit employers, who are able to reduce their labour costs because of greater flexibility in hiring and firing and because such workers are not normally entitled to non-wage benefits?
• Should we view self-employment and the formal sector as a last resort for women or are their dynamic potentials? Is the informal sector the realistic employment path for women in the future or is it a dead end? Should policies therefore promote or discourage women’s concentration in the informal sector?

[This note was prepared from Briefing Note 3.1, "The changing roles of women in the economy - Employment and social issues", in the Briefing Kit on Gender Issues in the World of Work, ILO, Geneva, 1995; Module 1, "Women at Work in Asia and the Pacific: Situation, Issues and Concerns" in Promotion of Equality of Opportunity and Treatment for Women Workers: an ILO Manual for Asia and the Pacific, ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok, 1994, and Lin Lean Lim, More and Better Jobs for Women: an action guide, ILO Geneva, 1996.]

Suggested further readings

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For further information, please contact the South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary
Advisory Team (SEAPAT) at Tel: +63.2.815.2354 or Fax: +63.2.812.6143
E-mail: seapat@ilo.org