Research Abstracts on Child Labour Women Labour - Nipccd

90
<strong>Research</strong> <strong>Abstracts</strong> on Child Labour, Labour and Women Labour 1998 - 2009
Unorganised Sector
while only 8% did not send their boy child to school. About 64% self-employed women
operated from within their homes, and 35% of them were operating on streets, without any
legal status. About 37% households did not own the house they lived in, and they lived in
rented or other premises. A high proportion of women workers (53%) had very little or no
work for four months in a year, and another 30% had a slack season for about 3 months.
About 54% households did not have access to public health care facilities, and of those who
had government health facilities, about 21% did not avail the public health facility. The risks
that informal workers faced were that of the death of an earning member in the household,
loss of job due to illness, loss of job or assets, loss of work, etc. About 13.1% of all
households and 30% poor households faced this crisis. About 41% households reported
expenditure on illness as a major crisis, especially among poor households; 17% experienced
the birth of a child as a vulnerable situation, and 24% households had large outstanding
debts, in both female and male headed households. Women, with their dual burden, had to
deal with provision of both basic and economic needs of the households. There is a need to
address the economic insecurities of these women. Economic policies must be developed in
conjunction with policies concerning reproduction and child care. A mechanism through
which the insecurities of the women could be addressed is organization of these women into
groups or unions, as hardly 2% of them were part of unions at the time of the study.