WUNRN
ILO - International Labour
Organization
CAWTAR
- Center for Arab Women Training and Research
Direct Link to Report:
Jamil
Hilal, Saleh Al Kafri,
and Eileen Kuttab
Palestine-Unprotected Employment in the
West Bank & Gaza Strip:
A Gender Equality & Workers' Rights
Perspective
The nature of
employment is rapidly and dramatically changing around
the world, including in Arab States. The increasing flexibility of
labour markets at global and local levels has led to a rise of informal
employment, self-employment and atypical forms of employment. This
process, termed as informalization, has been accompanied by an increase
of insecurity and poverty.
Informalization also has a gendered
nature with differential earnings, choices
and locations of activities,
level of competitions, and time allocated to work,
with significant implications for
women, especially young women in Arab
States. While employment is the main
path out of poverty, the International
Labour Organization (ILO) Decent
Work Agenda underscores the significance
of quality as well as quantity of
jobs generated.
Official statistics, laws, policies, and programmes have not been
sufficiently capturing the informalization of jobs, thereby impeding the
much needed extension of social protection to informal workers,
especially in Arab States. To fill the gap, the ILO and Center for Arab
Women Training and Research (CAWTAR) launched in January 2007 a regional
initiative on Gender Equality and Workers’ Rights in the Informal
Economies of Arab States. Funded by the International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations
Development Organizations (AGFUND), and the ILO, this two-year
initiative aims to mainstream Arab States into the current global
thinking on informal employment using the perspective of gender equality
and workers’ rights.
In this study, the concept of informal employment is used to refer to
the characteristics of the job rather than the characteristics of the
economic unit, and explicitly relates to social protection and
entitlements. The size of informal employment is computed through direct
calculations and indirect estimations based on official surveys.
Furthermore, a gender equality and workers’ rights perspective is
applied to the analysis of informal employment in the Palestinian
context. This perspective highlights the need to use labour rights and
other relevant human rights standards to identify the problems facing
informal workers, the political, economic, social, and cultural causes
and consequences of informalization, and the claims, responsibilities,
capabilities and actions required. It suggests ways to introduce
policies and programmes providing equal opportunities to women and men;
transform institutional norms, rules, procedures, and attitudes; and
prioritize the rights of informal workers to exercise choices, access
resources and remedies, gain voice, and organize towards equality of
access, benefits, and genuine empowerment.
This case study is complemented by a policy brief, a regional overview,
as well as a glossary on informal employment, and several other country
case studies including Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It is intended to
influence the thinking within the Palestinian Authority (PA), workers’
and employers’ organizations, research institutions, and international
agencies.
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