Informal economy

Globally, women have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the impact has varied between groups of women, women in the informal sector, mainly those managing micro- and small-scale businesses, have been severely affected. Drawing on the case of urban Sri Lanka, this paper explores the challenges that women owners of micro- and small-scale […]

Studies show that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions had disproportionately negative impacts on the majority of the world’s workers who work informally, and on women informal workers in particular. This reflects the interplay between the pandemic, existing decent work deficits in informal employment, and discriminatory gendered norms within and outside the workplace. Based on […]

This article focuses on the challenges facing organisation among the hardest-to-reach working women in the informal economy. What gives some of them the impetus and courage to organise? What is distinctive about the strategies they draw on to transcend their structurally disadvantated position within the economy? What barriers do they continue to face in their efforts to […]