Reducing Vulnerable Employment: Is there a Role for Reproductive Health, Social Protection, and Labor Market Policy?

Abstract

Reproductive health and employment are inextricably linked for women. Across the globe, women are the primary caretakers of children, and a woman’s reproductive years tend to overlap with her economically productive years. Planned and unplanned pregnancy and childbearing affect women’s ability to pursue different types of economic opportunities and even the choice of sectors in which they seek to work. This study explores the timing and sequencing of policy to address reproductive health needs and to strengthen labor market institutions and social protection, illustrated by case studies from six developing countries – Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, South Africa, the Philippines, and Vietnam – which have similar demographic transitions but divergent labor market outcomes for women. The findings suggest that where fertility transitions have been sharpest, this has not automatically translated into more employment and better labor market outcomes for women – illuminating a critical role for policy to support women’s transition into formal employment.

KEYWORDS:

• Informal economy
• vulnerable employment
• fertility
• labor market participation

JEL Codes:

• J21
• J13

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Kathryn Farley, Shelby Bourgault, and Caedmon Kollmer-Dorsey for meticulous research assistance and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for their generous support of our research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation: [grant number 2016-4379].

Notes on contributors

Sarah Gammage

Sarah Gammage is Director of Gender, Economic Empowerment, and Livelihoods at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). Her research focuses on gender and labor markets, migration, time use, and time poverty. She is an associate editor of Feminist Economics and a member of Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing. She has worked for a number of international and multilateral organizations including the Economic Commission for Latin America, the International Labour Organisation, and UN Women.

Naziha Sultana

Naziha Sultana is Associate for the Gender, Economic Empowerment, and Livelihoods portfolio at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), where she conducts research on topics around women’s economic empowerment and participation in the labor force, agricultural supply chains, and enterprises. She received a Master of Arts with a focus in gender and economics from the Fletcher School of Tufts University in Massachusetts, and a Master of Development Studies from BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Allison Glinski

Allison Glinski is Gender and Evaluation Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). Her research, program, and advocacy experiences focus on women’s economic empowerment, gender and clean energy, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), social enterprise development and value chain gender integration, education, child marriage, women’s time poverty and unpaid care work, and reproductive health and family planning. She holds an MA in international development with a concentration in global health from the George Washington University and a BA in English and psychology from the University of Michigan.