Informal workers and social security

The growing number of women in self-employment or in informal employment means that increased income does not come with access to social security benefits. Informal work itself is inclined to be hazardous and insecure and women tend to earn lower incomes than men. Women bear the hidden costs of this precarious employment in the short term and it undermines their own security in the longer term, as well as that of their children who become trapped in poverty.

Women's increasing participation in the labour market also means that child care needs to be included as a core measure of social protection. This can be argued in terms of child development and of assisting the productivity of women, especially those simultaneously combining unpaid child care and productive work.