Daily Graphic, Pg 11. Tuesday, May 05/09
Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
A three-year research project on the changing character of women’s work and its implications for women’s livelihood security has been launched in Accra.
The project, known as “Formalising the informal and informalising the formal: Analysing changes in women’s work in Ghana”, will examine women’s work in two sectors, namely banking and paid domestic work.
Funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the project which is being undertaken by the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) of the University of Ghana, in three urban centres, namely Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, seeks to examine the changing nature of work, especially in the banking and domestic sector, with the view to making policy recommendations for improving work conditions in the two sectors.
According to the Project Lead researcher, Dr Dzodzi Tsikata, the two sectors, one in the formal and the other in the informal economies were illustrations of some of the important developments in the character of women’s work.
She said both sectors had seen significant changes since the 1990s when economic liberalisation policies began to gain root, and that domestic work was increasingly being procured through agents and agencies while on the other hand the banking sector, traditionally seen as the bastion of formality and long term employment is changing with the introduction of labour agencies into the sector.
These changes, she said, were taking place in a general context of labour market liberation and the informalisation of work in both developed and developing countries , with these two sectors being illustrations of the changing character of women’s livelihood.
She said informal work was becoming more prominent among women across the country with most women going into hawking, trading, sewing, domestic and other unpaid work, a situation which she said generated lesser incomes and therefore jeopardised their security.
According to her, the country’s labour law favours formal work but the focus should be looked at since most people were now becoming self employed and called for equal opportunities for both formal and informal work in the labour laws.
Dr Tsikata who mentioned some of the objectives of the research, said it was to create a gender profile for the domestic and banking sectors, as well as agencies involved in the sectors and to examine the changes in labour conditions and its implications for employment security and the social security of women workers in the banking and domestic sectors.
She said the study was also to explore ways in which reproductive work differentiated women and men’s experiences of change in the domestic and banking sectors.
The project, she said would also analyse any relationship between labour legislation and policies and informalisation and explore the extent to which laws and policies were tackling the challenges of informalisation.
The research which was undertaken by four female researchers, Prof. Nana Akua Anyidoho, Prof. Akosua Darkwa, Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Dr Tsikata, established that most banks sampled, preferred to use agency staff as a way of saving cost.
According to the research, a total of 13 banks in the three research areas which were sampled, also revealed that sourcing for agency staff enabled the banks to focus on their core businesses.
The research also revealed among other things that domestic workers employed through an agent or agencies, normally received better conditions of service than bank staff employed through an agency, although in monitory terms the bankers received better pay conditions.
It further revealed that agencies out-sourced more women both to the banks and as domestic staffs than men.
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