Woman, training and work

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Decent work
A global issue

Almost everybody works, or wants to. Not everyone who works is employed, of course, and a lot of work goes unrecognized and unrewarded. Some work belongs to the money economy, some meets social goals outside the economic sphere. Much work is drudgery, but much also brings satisfaction. Some work occurs as employment in formal workplaces, in large enterprises. Some occurs informally on the street or in the fields, some in the home. Much work is necessary, the source of sustenance and income, but much is also voluntary.

All of these patterns and differences are strongly gendered. Women's work is much more commonly unpaid than men's, or not considered as work at all and therefore invisible, and women are over-represented in most of the more precarious categories of employment, as well as among the unemployed.

The primary goal of the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Because of the diversity of forms of work, this goal is complex. First it is necessary to encompass all workers; the fundamental principle is that all those who work, both women and men, have rights at work. That means not only wage workers in formal enterprises, but also the self-employed, casual and informal workers, the hidden, predominantly female workers of the care economy or of the domestic scene. Freedom, equity, security and dignity may take varying forms in different environments, although the underlying principle is the same. The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work captures vital dimensions of this vision: freedom of association, absence of discrimination and forced labour, rejection of child labour. Beyond these fundamental rights there are other concerns, such as the safety of the working environment, the duration and intensity of work, the possibilities for personal fulfilment, protection against contingencies and uncertainties. Then, work should be productive, if it is to provide a decent income. And above all, work should be available to those who want and need it.

These ideas, taken together, constitute the essence of the notion of decent work. The word "decent", it is sometimes said, sets the bar too low. Decent can merely mean the opposite of "indecent", a level of bare adequacy. But the word also has the meaning, in English, of meeting or exceeding core social standards - setting a threshold for work and employment which embodies universal rights, and which for a given society is consistent with its values and goals. In this sense, what is seen as "decent" evolves as the possibilities of societies also evolve, so the threshold advances with economic and social progress.

How can the goal of promoting decent work be achieved? In the work of the ILO it is seen as the synthesis of four strategic objectives:

• Achieving fundamental principles and rights at work
• Creation of greater employment and income opportunities for women and men
• Extending social protection, and
• Promoting social dialogue

These objectives are closely intertwined: respect for fundamental principles and rights is a precondition for the construction of a socially legitimate labour market; social dialogue the means by which workers, employers and their representatives engage in debate and interchange on the means to achieve this. Employment creation is the essential instrument for raising living standards and widening access to incomes, while social protection provides the means to achieve income security and security of the working environment.

These different dimensions of decent work reinforce each other. Often, the labour market is interpreted in terms of simple tradeoffs, so that raising the quality of jobs is expected to lead to higher labour costs and less employment creation. But most labour markets do not work in so simple a way. Better quality jobs are very often more productive. They also generate trust and cooperation, and physical and human investment which raises productivity further. Above all, they are a building block for social legitimacy, and so for the longer term stability of economic development. The link between the social and economic values of work, and the conditions under which it is performed is therefore at the heart of a strategy for promoting decent work. And a widening understanding of this reality is itself a source of social progress - for example, a better understanding of gender inequalities in the labour market has made them part of the debate on the legitimacy of dominant models of development.

Pursuing this strategy, then, means bringing together different instruments - legal, economic and institutional. Institutions and approaches have to be developed which make social policy a productive factor, and which build wider social goals into economic policy. For, while it is true that decent work can be a foundation for economic progress, it can only play this role if the institutional framework is right. That means enterprises which are not only competitive but also able to respond to the goals and objectives of workers. It means labour market institutions which promote consistency between social and economic goals, and provide incentives to achieve that objective. It means possibilities for democratic participation and debate.

Legitimacy also demands universality. This means designing policies which encompass both women and men, taking into account how gender inequality is built into the functioning of the labour market and even into the common view of what is considered productive work. It also means implementing effective policies for workers in small and informal enterprises, in homeworking and in casual jobs, and for members of disadvantaged minorities and workers with disabilities.

This is also an issue with a global dimension. Policies to promote decent work need to be set in an increasingly integrated world economy, where the opportunities facing enterprises constantly change, with implications for jobs and labour markets. Globalization has opened up new opportunities for growth and employment. But if the institutional framework is wrong, intensified competition on global markets can also lead to a downward spiral in wages and working conditions, while unstable financial flows put both economic and social progress at risk. Again, these risks and opportunities are asymmetrical between genders. In facing these challenges, the international community is realizing that the integrated problems of development cannot be tackled with sectoral solutions. And in an integrated response, decent work provides a crucial and central dimension, a way to build social standards into development and into effective participation in the international economy.

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