Unskilled Women Research Articles

Közfoglalkoztatás a mezőgazdaságban

A magyar foglalkoztatáspolitika évtized eleji átalakítása, a workfare jelleg erősítése alapjaiban formálta át a közfoglalkoztatási rendszert. A közmunkából, amely eredetileg csupán egy volt az aktív foglalkoztatáspolitikai eszközökből, s amely átmeneti vagy részmunkaidős elhelyezkedési lehetőséget kínált a tartós munkanélkülieknek, így vált egy univerzális, majd minden álláskereső számára elérhető, majdhogynem garantált elhelyezkedési lehetőséggé.A közfoglalkoztatás új rendszerében kiemelt szerep jutott az ország legkedvezőtlenebb helyzetű térségeiben meghirdetett mezőgazdasági közfoglalkoztatási programoknak, amelyek a jó minőségű élelmiszerrel való ellátást biztosítják. A közfoglalkoztatás fizikai termékek előállításával való összekapcsolása nemzetközi szinten ritka, de nem példa nélküli. Argentínában és Indiában, ahol a közfoglalkoztatási programok keretén belül mezőgazdasági tevékenységek is megjelentek, hivatalosan nem kerülnek piaci forgalomba a megtermelt mezőgazdasági termékek, hiszen maguk a közmunkások, illetve a rászorulók étkeztetésére használják azokat.A hazai gyakorlat e tekintetben legalábbis kétarcú, hiszen egyrészt határozott elvárás a piaczavarás elkerülése, ugyanakkor cél a fejlesztési projektek saját lábra állása, önfenntartóvá válása, ami végső soron a valódi piacra való kilépést jelenti. A politikai célok érthetőek, ugyanakkor nem jött létre egyetértés a tekintetben, hogy miként lehetne ezt elérni.A magyar mezőgazdasági közfoglalkoztatási programok népszerűvé váltak, az érintettek számára ugyanis biztos, különösebb képzettséget nem igénylő munkalehetőséget teremtenek, még ha a piaci és a hivatalos minimálbérnél is alacsonyabb fizetést nyújtanak.A 2012–2013. évekre vonatkozó teljes körű adatok alapján látható, hogy a hátrányos helyzetű térségekben meghirdetett mezőgazdasági közfoglalkoztatási programokba leginkább a hátrányos munkaerő-piaci helyzetűek – azaz nők, pályakezdő fiatalok, alacsonyan képzettek– kerülnek be. A mezőgazdasági közfoglalkoztatási programok foglalkoztatási reintegrációs hatása csekélynek mondható, az érintettek alig 9,9 százaléka tudott a munkaerőpiacon elhelyezkedni, legnagyobb valószínűséggel ismét közfoglalkoztatottakká váltak.

Women Skill Development and Make in India: Opportunities and Challenges

In India majority of women and men residing both in rural and urban areas are unskilled. However, more number of women residing in the rural areas is unskilled compared to men living in both rural and urban areas. And these unskilled women workers are working in the informal sector facing many problems including lack of skills. The studies reveal that more than 90 per cent of women workers are concentrated in the informal sector. However, the condition of women in the informal sector is miserable, most of time they have to work in extremely low wages and without any job security and social security benefits, apart from these working conditions also unsatisfactory. And for all these problem lack of skill among women is one of the main reasons. Hence, to empower women working in the informal sector and fulfill the dream of Make in India concept of our Hon. Prime Minister there is an urgent need to transform them as ‗skilled worker‘ through suitable programmes and policies. Against this background the paper is designed with the following objectives. 1. To discuss the importance of skill development for women in the informal sector in the wake of Make in India; 2.To discuss the hurdles of women in attaining skill; 3.To suggest suitable policy measures to improve employability of the women workers in the informal sector. The proposed study mainly is descriptive in nature. It solemnly based on secondary sources of data and information which is collected from the related sources as per need of the research. The study suggests that there is a need to further develop HRD and training policy from a gender perspective, with an understanding of local customs and traditions. Besides this, there is a need to make the skill development process accommodating and flexible to encourage women to enroll. The training may have to incorporate teaching of basic skills such as numeracy, problem solving, communication, learning to learn, and team work and,other deeply impacting skill such as behavioral skills, including building selfesteem, self-organizational and negotiating capacity for employment purpose.

Social Norms, Labor Market Opportunities, and the Marriage Gap for Skilled Women

In most of the developed world, skilled women marry at a lower rate than unskilled women. We document heterogeneity across countries in how the marriage gap for skilled women has evolved over time. As labor market opportunities for women have improved, the marriage gap has been growing in some countries but shrinking in others. We discuss a theoretical model in which the (negative) social attitudes towards working women might contribute towards the lower marriage rate of skilled women, and might also induce a non-linear relationship between their labor market prospects and their marriage outcomes. The model is suited to understand the dynamics of the marriage gap for skilled women over time within a country with set social attitudes towards working women. The model also delivers predictions about how the marriage gap for skilled women should react to changes in their labor market opportunities across countries with more or less conservative attitudes towards working women. We test the key predictions of this model in a panel of 23 developed countries, as well as in a panel of US states.

Economic Empowerment of Rural Unskilled Women Workers: A Case Study in Agglomerating Centers of Rongjuli TD Block in Goalpara District of Assam, India

Productive and gainful employment of human resource is one of the major objectives of policy perspectives of any economy. Rural economy of India is characterized by a massive presence of unskilled as well as merely paid women workers who are engaged in household level activities that constitute a major part of the total workforce. Rural women workforce plays significant roles in the economy who participate in larger number of economic activity in agriculture and allied sector. The ever growing population and shrinkage of operational holding have resulted on searching for employment opportunities by the unskilled women workers. The changing socio-economic structure in the post-reform period has emerged an environment for economic empowerment even for unskilled women workers in rural areas. Presently a number of rural women who are unskilled seemed to participate in various informal employment opportunities such as self-employed as small trader in spot market or roadside hubs, casual worker in business establishment etc. mostly in the agglomerating centers of Goalpara district of Assam. Such phenomenon of growing participation of unskilled rural women workers needs a look in micro level to assess their empowerment status in particular and their significant role in the economy in general.Therefore, a study on the issue of economic empowerment of rural unskilled women workers in general and particular to the agglomerating areas of Rangjuli TD Block in Goalpara district of Assam, India has been chosen. The present paper seeks to achieve the objectives of assessing the economic status of rural women work participants, identify the prominent activities, and identify the bottlenecks and to search the facilitating factors of economic empowerment.

Managing the women managers: a case study of paper bag makers

Subject area Human resource management. Study level/applicability It is appropriate for graduate students majoring in human resource or business management. Students who are interested in studying Asian economies in the world, as they are the most growing economies in the world and at the same time have a shocking number of people employed in the informal sector. Case overview This case study talks about women workers who face a glass ceiling at the management level and deplorable working conditions at the informal level. This case involves women in the paper bag-making business, a part of the urban informal sector. The paper bag-making business provides employment and income generation for the urban poor. The focus in this study is on women production workers, rather than entrepreneurs or professional managers. Focus of the study will be on the change in the pattern of income distribution within the family-based household, the degree of bargaining power derived from productive work and income and impact of technology on the plight of unskilled women force and how technology and vocational training can lead to utilization of manpower being wasted because of lack of synergy between technology and the informal sector in India. Expected learning outcomes Four key points of selection, training, assessment and leadership all have been addressed in this case study, and the relevance of these points is important from the point of view of management students who have to understand the linkages and the hidden costs these informal sector occupations come with and then to device an appropriate strategy to bring and use these human resources to their full capacity by utilizing the existing resources instead of adding new ones, which in development economics is known as Solow residual. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Lack of Gender Sensitization in Malaysian Laws and Regulations: Need for a Rights-Based Approach

There has been a rise in the number of cases of abuses towards foreign unskilled women as reported in the mass media and by non-governmental organizations in Malaysia. This has called into question the rights of female migrant workers in Malaysia. To put into perspective the treatment towards female migrants and rights, one has first to understand the role and recognition of women in the Malaysian labour market and second, the Malaysian laws and regulations pertaining to the employment of women. The paper therefore appraises historically the changing role of women in the labour force and the evolving gender dimensions embedded in the laws and regulations. It is noted from the early labour history of Malaya, prominence was given to the role of males. Likewise, there were not many laws specifically enacted to safeguard female workers interests’ during the colonial era. The paper therefore contends that the early economic and political landscape in Malaysia that viewed women as having complementary roles instead of equal roles with their male counterparts has given rise to a lack of or limited gender sensitization in the labour laws and regulations. Further, the focus on gender mainstreaming instead of a rights-based approach in the developmental framework is inept to reflect gender sensitivity in some of the existing laws or ensure effective gender mainstreaming.

Women Entrepreneurship in Micro, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises in Akwa Ibom State

Despite challenges, women in Akwa Ibom State have contributed meaningfully to poverty reduction and economic development of the state. Women entrepreneurs are engaged in different sectors of the economy. About 37% are in agriculture, 26.8% in trade, 18.5% in services and 4.8% in entertainment. However, there was no significant difference (P> 0.05) between skilled and unskilled women entrepreneurs in their contributions to improved economy of the state (improved family income, improved standard of living etc). But their contribution to level of patriotism was below cut-off point. There was no significant difference (P> 0.05) between women entrepreneurs in factors militating against their performance in MSMEs. Factor such as financial/start-up capital, cultural/religious barriers, legal problems, competition and poor infrastructure significantly militate against the performance of skilled and unskilled entrepreneurship in the state. This calls for strategic support from government, private organizations and individuals to enable women perform optimally and contribute more to the economic development of Akwa Ibom State.

Foreign Wage Premium, Gender and Education: Insights from Vietnam Household Surveys

AbstractThis paper investigates the differential impacts of foreign ownership on wages for different types of workers (in terms of educational background and gender) in Vietnam using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys of 2002 and 2004. Whereas most previous studies have compared wage levels between foreign and domestic sectors using firm‐level data (thus excluding the informal sector), one advantage of using the Living Standards Surveys in this paper is that the data allow wage comparison analyses to extend to the informal wage sector. A series of Mincerian earnings equations and worker‐specific fixed effects models are estimated. Several findings emerge. First, foreign firms pay higher wages relative to their domestic counterparts after controlling for workers' personal characteristics. Second, the higher the individual workers' levels of education, the larger on average are the wage premiums for those who work for foreign firms. Third, longer hours of work in foreign firm jobs relative to working in the informal wage sector are an important component of the wage premium. Finally, unskilled women experience a larger foreign wage premium than unskilled men, reflecting the low earning opportunities for women and a higher gender gap in the informal wage sector.

Assessing the Effects of Trade Liberalization on Wage Inequalities in Egypt: A Microsimulation Analysis

This article aims at evaluating the liberalization policies' effects on wage inequality in Egypt. Gender, geographical, and skill dimensions are used to break down labor into eight segments. This article simulates the effect of a reduction of tariffs imposed on imports by 50%. Results show that the effect of trade liberalization policies depends on the characteristics of the individual and the working sector. Thanks to the expansion of textiles, garments, chemicals, and services, inequality decreases for urban and rural skilled men as well as skilled and unskilled women working in urban areas. By contrast, inequality increases among unskilled men and skilled women in rural areas.

P2-516 Educational level and occupational social class and the incidence of life-style related chronic diseases in the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam Study

IntroductionHealthy lifestyle choices, such as weight control through a balanced diet and regular physical activity, play a key role in chronic disease prevention. Underlying socioeconomic factors may mediate disease risk,...

Gender Gaps Across Countries and Skills: Supply, Demand and the Industry Structure

The gender wage gap varies widely across countries and across skill groups within countries. Interestingly, there is a positive cross-country correlation between the unskilled-to-skilled gender wage gap and the corresponding gap in hours worked. Based on a canonical supply and demand framework, this positive correlation would reveal the presence of net demand forces shaping gender differences in labor market outcomes across skills and countries. We use a simple multi-sector framework to illustrate how differences in labor demand for different inputs can be driven by both within-industry and between-industry factors. The main idea is that, if the service sector is more developed in the US than in continental Europe, and unskilled women tend to be over-represented in this sector, we expect unskilled women to suffer a relatively large wage and/or employment penalty in the latter than in the former. We find that, overall, the between-industry component of labor demand explains more than half of the total variation in labor demand between the US and the majority of countries in our sample, as well as one-third of the correlation between wage and hours gaps. The between-industry component is relatively more important in countries where the relative demand for unskilled females is lowest.

The Sewing-Room Projects of the Works Progress Administration

Under an order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, sewing-room projects of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) were established on 1 November 1935 to furnish goods to a non-competitive market devoid of purchasing power, to provide work to unskilled women and to prepare workers for private industry. The projects became the backbone of the women's division of the WPA. Yet, the offering of products created in government-sponsored sewing rooms angered the ready-to-wear apparel industry. This paper examines the procedures and controversies of the sewing-room projects to better understand the significance of the largest employer of women during the New Deal.

Placement and/or protection? Singapore's labour policies and practices for temporary women migrant workers

This paper examines current labour policies directed at unskilled women migrant workers in Singapore. Since the early 1980s, the rationale underlying Singapore's labour policies towards temporary migrant workers has been that of maximizing economic benefits while simultaneously minimizing social and economic costs. But adopting this position has been increasingly difficult because of the persistent abuses these migrants experience. Closer scrutiny of the immigration policies and practices for unskilled women migrants over the last two decades reveals a gradual shift by the Singapore State towards greater seriousness in addressing temporary women migrant worker issues. This paper argues, however, that the resulting policies tend to reinforce placement procedures more than they help to ensure the actual protection and empowerment of these migrant workers. Moreover, any shift in labour policies and practices towards unskilled migrant workers tends mainly to benefit first the State, then the employer and, only last, the worker.

Labor Force Attachment and the Evolving Wage Gap Between White, Black, and Hispanic Young Women

In this article, the authors examine the role of labor force attachment (LFA) in shaping the diverging wage trajectories of White, Black, and Hispanic women during their first postschooling decade. The authors take advantage of the longitudinal aspects of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth work history data by constructing detailed annual and cumulative measures of LFA and use them to examine women's wage profiles. The findings show constant racial and ethnic wage gaps among women with college education and a widening race gap among women with no college degree. The latter pattern emphasizes the importance of market-related processes in generating wage inequality among unskilled women. The authors document substantial racial and ethnic gaps within this group in the accumulation of LFA, especially immediately after the transition from school to work. This deficit in labor market experience plays a critical role in creating the diverse wage trajectories of White, Black, and Hispanic women with no college education.

Women’s Cityward Migration, Domestic Service and Schooling in Southern Mexico

That 40,000 women work as household workers in Oaxaca City (population 450,000) is deemed “very high for a country as developed as Mexico” (Selby, Murphy and Lorenzon 1991:48; INEGI 2001). Ethnographic data collected among women currently and at one time working as either full-time or daily/hourly domestic workers shed light on the realities faced by unskilled women cityward migrants who find employment in the lowest paid, least prestigious jobs in the urban economy. Two case studies are presented to illustrate ways that women's paid household labor can finance their own or their children's acquisition of the schooling requisite for more gainful, higher paid forms of urban formal sector employment.

Comment améliorer les gains du retour à l'emploi ?

<titre>R&#233;sum&#233;</titre>Nous mod&#233;lisons les gains du retour &#224; l&#8217;emploi en tenant compte des gains diff&#233;r&#233;s, associ&#233;s aux possibilit&#233;s de mobilit&#233;s sur le march&#233; du travail. Nous montrons formellement que ces gains d&#233;pendent moins de l&#8217;&#233;cart imm&#233;diat entre les revenus de remplacement et les r&#233;mun&#233;rations des emplois de mauvaise qualit&#233;, que de l&#8217;accessibilit&#233; des bons emplois, de leur s&#233;curit&#233;, et de l&#8217;&#233;tendue des carri&#232;res salariales. Or, ces d&#233;terminants sont plus ou moins favorables selon les groupes sociaux. Une simulation mobilisant les enqu&#234;tes Emploi de l&#8217;insee sugg&#232;re qu&#8217;il est pr&#233;f&#233;rable de mixer les instruments incitatifs compte tenu de l&#8217;h&#233;t&#233;rog&#233;n&#233;it&#233; des publics cibles. S&#8217;il faut favoriser une plus grande s&#233;curit&#233; de l&#8217;emploi pour les hommes jeunes et peu dipl&#244;m&#233;s, il importe de privil&#233;gier l&#8217;accessibilit&#233; des bons emplois pour les femmes jeunes dipl&#244;m&#233;es ou les hommes d&#8217;&#226;ge interm&#233;diaire peu dipl&#244;m&#233;s, ou encore d&#8217;agir sur tous les leviers &#224; la fois pour les femmes jeunes peu dipl&#244;m&#233;es.

Job Mobility and Early Career Wage Growth of White, African‐American, and Hispanic Women*

Objective. This article examines whether and how young women's job mobility influences racial and ethnic wage‐growth differentials during the first eight years after leaving school.Methods. We use the NLSY‐79 Work History File to simulate the influence of job mobility on the wages of skilled and unskilled workers.Results. African‐American and Hispanic women average less job mobility than white women, especially if they did not attend college. Unskilled women who experience frequent job changes during the first four postschool years reap positive wage returns, but turnover beyond the shopping period incurs wage penalties. Job mobility does not appear to boost wage growth for college‐educated women.Conclusions. Among unskilled women, race and ethnic wage disparities partly derive from group differences in the frequency of job changes, but unequal returns to job mobility drive the wage gaps for skilled women. We discuss several explanations for these disparities.

Beyond Beijing—women's rights in the workplace

abstract A bird's eye view of our legal framework shows that there is a plethora of rights and measures in place to protect women's rights in South Africa. However, the success of these rights and measures depends invariably on the extent to which women have socio-economic access to make their impact effective. The persistent lack of economic and social power of women, especially black women, may well negate the full benefit of these rights for those who need it most. The challenge for South Africa is to bring these legal measures alive for poor, unskilled women. The problems associated with maternity protection and sexual harassment in the workplace are used to illustrate this challenge.

Emploi des femmes et charges familiales

<titre>R&#233;sum&#233;</titre> Suite &#224; l&#8217;introduction de le PAJE, prestation d&#8217;accueil du jeune enfant, l&#8217;OFCE a organis&#233; le 3 d&#233;cembre 2003 une journ&#233;e de r&#233;flexion entre &#233;conomistes, sociologues, philosophes, juristes et d&#233;cideurs publics afin d&#8217;ouvrir et &#233;clairer un d&#233;bat public sur le r&#244;le et les cons&#233;quences sur l&#8217;emploi des femmes du cong&#233; parental. Apr&#232;s avoir fait le bilan de l&#8217;allocation parentale d&#8217;&#233;ducation, il ressort que ce dispositif est d&#233;favorable &#224; l&#8217;emploi des femmes peu qualifi&#233;es. Au terme des trois ans de cong&#233;, la r&#233;insertion sur le march&#233; du travail de ces b&#233;n&#233;ficiaires est probl&#233;matique. Au regard des syst&#232;mes nordiques, le cong&#233; parental fran&#231;ais manque de coh&#233;rence globale tant du point de vue de bien-&#234;tre de l&#8217;enfant que de celui de l&#8217;emploi des femmes. Le d&#233;bat entre les participants-es montre comment, dans un contexte soci&#233;tal o&#249; les t&#226;ches domestiques et parentales reposent essentiellement sur les femmes, le cong&#233; parental est un pivot essentiel permettant d&#8217;articuler vie professionnelle et vie familiale. Il est au centre de plusieurs enjeux sociaux et &#233;conomiques&#160;: insertion des femmes sur le march&#233; du travail, &#233;galit&#233; des sexes, partage des temps sociaux et bien-&#234;tre de l&#8217;enfant. Il doit &#234;tre analys&#233; comme une partie int&#233;grante du dispositif plus large de prise en charge de la petite enfance. Les conclusions indiquent que le cong&#233; parental fran&#231;ais est trop long, mal r&#233;mun&#233;r&#233;, d&#233;favorable au partage des t&#226;ches parentales entre hommes et femmes. Une r&#233;forme de ce cong&#233;, accompagn&#233;e d&#8217;un investissement massif en structures d&#8217;accueil des jeunes enfants, serait plus favorable &#224; l&#8217;insertion des femmes sur le march&#233; du travail &#224; l&#8217;&#233;gal des hommes.

Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City

Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City