Homeworkers and the global economy. Removing the mask of invisibility

What is home work? It is the production of goods and/or services under subcontract, by workers who work in a place of their own choosing, often at home, and who are usually paid on a piece- work rate. Not under the direct control of the employer, such "homeworkers" can organize their working day, but have no control or say concerning the characteristics or price of what they produce. They are invisible to national statistics, because home work has not been recognized as a distinct category of work in employment and labour statistics, and labour laws have been generally silent or unclear about their rights. Largely made up of low-income and low-skilled women who need to reconcile family responsibilities and domestic chores with income-earning activities, homeworkers receive little and irregular pay, and no social insurance benefits. Since they work in isolation, they are rarely organized into representative associations.

What statistics do exist on homeworkers are patchy and inconsistent at best. It seems, however, that their numbers have been increasing, as a result of the splitting up and relocation of production processes through the establishment of production "chains" operating within and across countries which make use of available cheap female labour. What is new about home work is that it is no longer confined to labour-intensive industries - footwear and the garment industries, for example - as it once was. It is also emerging in capital-intensive industries and in the service sector. Another new feature of home work is the diversity of homeworkers in terms of productivity, educational attainment, work experience, motives for engaging in this type of work, and levels of pay. Interestingly, women tend to predominate in the less-skilled, less-productive and lower-paid jobs.

There are several major obstacles to raising the level of homeworkers to that of other workers:

1. Invisibility and blind policies and programmes: There are no reliable estimates of the number of homeworkers, their geographical location, employment and demographic characteristics. National labour surveys fail to capture home work, because of various conceptual and operational difficulties. It is also hard to distinguish between homeworkers who work for themselves and those who work for others - in fact, the same worker may doing both at various times. The invisibility of home work may be due to the fact that it involves mainly female labour, traditionally undervalued. The lack of understanding of what home work consists of and the lack of reliable statistics hamper both the design of suitable policies and programmes targeted at homeworkers, and the monitoring of the impact on them of social and economic changes.

2. Lack of social protection: The legal treatment of home work varies significantly within and between regions. In Latin America, the labour codes of many countries contain specific and detailed provisions on this form of employment or recognize most of the labour rights and social insurance benefits for homeworkers which are guaranteed for factory wage earners. Conversely, in Asia, the law tends to be silent about this category of workers. But, in both instances, homeworkers tend to fall outside the realm of conventional social protection schemes. This is due either to the informal arrangements under which this work is carried out or because homeworkers are requested by their employer or intermediary to register themselves as independent workers, so as not to be entitled to labour protection and social security benefits.

3. Lack of organization:Homeworkers are mainly married women at the reproductive age who often do not see themselves as performing a useful economic activity. They work alone or with the help of unpaid family labour. They have little or no contact with other homeworkers and no exposure to the labour movement. The way they obtain work is highly informal, mainly through neighbourhood networks or family and/or ethnic contacts. Their isolation and the nature of the relationship homeworkers often maintain with their employers or intermediaries prevents them from applying pressure for improvements in their pay or in the regularity of their work.

The ILO has done much to deal with the question of home work. Since the early 1980s, it has conducted action-oriented research, as well as technical cooperation activities in south Asia and south-east Asia. In 1996, the ILO Conference adopted Convention No. 177 on home work, reinforcing the ILO's commitment to the promotion of the social protection, improved working conditions and enhanced earning capacity of homeworkers. That same year, capitalizing and building upon its previous work, the inter-regional programme, "Homeworkers in the Global Economy" was launched. It has two components: the Asian component, which consolidates the institutional and policy achievements obtained during ten years of work in the region, and the Latin American component, consisting of a series of country studies designed to establish basic information on the extent and forms of home work in that region.

Any strategy targeting homeworkers needs to take into account its gender dimension. It must address the needs of homeworkers in their double capacity of economic agents and family care providers. It must contend with the invisible character of the work and the weak identity of women homeworkers as bona fide workers. This calls for multi-pronged strategies aimed at enhancing job and income opportunities, while improving the welfare of the workers and ensuring better social protection. Thus, five components need to be included in any such strategy:

Strategy components

Gathering and analyzing data on the magnitude, distribution by economic sector, and characteristics of home work
Improving the productivity and pay of homeworkers
Expanding the coverage of social protection through non-conventional forms of social insurance
Strengthening the bargaining capacity and social status of homeworkers, through organization-building and networking
Promoting policy and institutional environments which are friendly to this category of workers

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

Homeworkers and the global economy
Removing the mask of invisibility

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

Homeworkers and the global economy Removing the mask of invisibility

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

Homeworkers and the global economy
Removing the mask of invisibility