Women in the Informal Labour Sector: The Case of Mexico City

Abstract

In recent years, the informal labour sector has increasingly represented a testing point for theories of development. The proliferation of informal jobs in developing countries has been considered alternately a stage in the process of development and a blind alley leading a country back into underdevelopment. But social scientists and policymakers have rarely recognized that the majority of those left out of the formal occupational structure are women. It is, however, very difficult to establish the heuristic boundaries of the informal labour sector, particularly with respect to women. Are we referring to the intermittent part-time activities of women outside the household both in cities and in rural areas? But men also engage in such activities, for example, as street peddlers. Is the unpaid work of the wife and young unmarried daughters in a family enterprise such as a store an informal job? If unpaid labour is to be included in the informal labour sector, then women’s voluntary community service and their unpaid domestic labour must also be taken into account. Moreover, since informal labour also comprises work not regulated through a contract, all low income, non-contractual jobs registered as formal occupations, such as paid domestic service, belong to this classification. Many low income and low productivity jobs included in the formal occupational structure and registered in national censuses, even when such a contract does exist, can be considered as a continuation of informal jobs as well and thus must be analysed within the informal labour sector. This paper assumes that the nature of the informal labour sector in a developing economy is a direct outgrowth of the type of industrialization a country is undergoing. Within this framework, this paper explores the degree of occupational choice that women have within the structural margins of employment.