Status of Women|
Women In Informal Sectors|
Submitted To: Miss. Ayera InderaasSubmitted By: Reja Saqib ButtMajor & Sem: B.SC(Economics) II| |
The informal sector plays a significant role in Pakistan’s economy as well as in other developing countries. Informal sectors are being encouraged by foreign countries and are considered as the plus point in the development of economy. Its role is solving the unemployment problem from the country. Many sectors have suggested that it should be used as a policy instrument for the solution of the most pressing problems of developing countries, such as unemployment, poverty, income inequalities, etc. THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN PAKISTAN is a book on economy of Pakistan by Dr. SHAH KHAN. This book tells us the existing formal system of provisions of services; covering from credit to education. Increasing population growth and changing economic and political developments have transformed demographic patterns. The inability of official system has already led to the emergence of a wide range of parallel services which are designed to serve the needs of those who are unable to benefit from the formal sector. This is the ‘informal sector’ which matches the formal sector fairly effectively in delivering to a vast emerging field of productive activity. This book “The Informal Sector in Pakistan” is an anthology of seminar papers, documents and various examples that illustrate the potential of the informal sector.
Poverty, loss of parents, conflicts within a family, poor parenting, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, peer influence, domestic violence, urbanisation famine and war are reasons where street children including many women and young girls are forced to seek opportunities outside the home environment.
There are various definitions of informal sector but the definition which was given in an ILO report is still considered as the best definition for Informal sector. It is defined below. It says: “Informal sectors are ways of doing things characterized by a heterogeneous array of economic activities with relative ease of entry, reliance on indigenous resources; temporary or variable structure and family ownership of enterprises, small scale of operation labour intensive and adapted technology skills acquired outside the formal school system, not depending on formal financial institutions for its credit needs; unregulated and unregistered units, and not observing fixed hours/days of operation.
Importance of Informal Sector:
Its importance can be seen by its contribution to national income and employment and its contribution to financial credits as compared to that of the formal sector. The Informal sector plays a vital role in Pakistan. Informal sector in urban employment was estimated to be about 69% for the year of 1972-1973. The World Bank also estimated the employment share of informal sector in urban Punjab to be 78% in 1984-1985. The share estimated in the informal sector in the total employment of Pakistan was as 74.48 per cent for the year 1984-85.Despite the significance of the informal sector in Pakistan, there is limited attention paid to and research done in this sector and especially in the rural informal sector. Although women’s role in the rural informal sector is very significant, it has been completely ignored. There is hardly any research on working women in the rural informal sector of the country. I have discussed the role and contribution of the female labour force in the rural informal sector of Punjab. It is estimated in some reports the earning functions for the informal sector of Lahore was that education was the most important factor which affected the earnings of both male and female. The conclusion was that the wages in informal sector were higher than those in the informal sector for both male and female irrespective of their educational qualification. Some resources found that the share of female employment in...