The Background of Resistance and Movements in the Informal Economy

Imagine a woman named Seema. She sits on the floor of her one-room home, piles of brightly coloured fabric scraps surrounding her. For ten, sometimes twelve, hours a day, she stitches intricate embroidery onto garment pieces. She is paid by the piece, a few rupees for a design that will eventually be part of a trendy dress sold in a high-end mall. Seema has no formal contract, no sick pay, and no idea who the ultimate buyer is. If she gets sick, she doesn’t earn. If the middleman rejects her work, she isn’t paid. Seema is one of hundreds of millions of women who form the invisible, indispensable backbone of the global economy: the informal workforce.

This sector, also called the unorganised sector, is not a fringe part of the economy; in many countries, it *is* the economy. And for women, it is often the only option. But this ‘option’ comes at a steep price, locking them in a cycle of vulnerability. Yet, it is from this very vulnerability that some of the most powerful movements for economic justice have been born. This is the story of that resistance-how women, pushed to the margins, began to mobilize and rewrite the rules.

The hidden workforce: Vulnerability in the unorganised sector 🔗

When we think of a “worker,” we often picture someone in a factory, an office, or a shop with fixed hours and a monthly salary. The unorganised sector shatters this image. It includes domestic workers, street vendors, home-based workers like Seema, agricultural labourers, and waste pickers. In India, for example, it’s estimated that over 90% of the female workforce is in this informal economy. They are not “unemployed”; they are working, often harder than anyone, but without a safety net.

This lack of a safety net is the core of their vulnerability. There is no legal protection, no formal employer-employee relationship, and no access to social security. This creates a perfect storm of exploitation, where long hours and low wages are the norm.

Why women are disproportionately affected 🔗

The informal economy is not gender-neutral; it actively targets and relies on women. Deep-rooted social norms often dictate that a woman’s primary role is domestic, forcing her to find work she can do from, or near, her home. This “flexibility” is a trap. It isolates her, makes her invisible to labour inspectors (if they even exist for her sector), and positions her as a “supplementary” earner, a justification for paying her less.

This vulnerability is multi-faceted:

• No job security: A domestic worker can be fired on a whim, with no notice or severance. A street vendor can have her goods confiscated by authorities.
• No social protection: There is no paid maternity leave, no pension, no health insurance. An illness in the family can wipe out a lifetime of savings.
• Low and uncertain wages: Many women are paid piece-rate, bearing the business risk themselves. According to data from India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the average monthly earning for self-employed women can be dismally low, trapping them in poverty.
• Unsafe working conditions: Beedi rollers, for example, are exposed to tobacco dust, while waste pickers handle hazardous materials without protective gear. Home-based workers often use their own electricity and tools, effectively subsidising their employer.

This entire structure is upheld by a legal system that was built for a different kind of worker. While laws like India’s Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act of 2008 exist, their implementation is often weak and fails to reach the most marginalised. For millions of women, the law is a distant, abstract concept, while exploitation is a daily, concrete reality.

The bigger picture: How global economics shape local work 🔗

It’s tempting to see Seema’s struggle as a purely local issue, a problem between her and the middleman. But her reality is being shaped by forces thousands of miles away. The rise of finance capital and the complex architecture of global production chains (or global supply chains) have fundamentally changed how things are made, and who bears the risk.

In the past, a large company might have owned the factory, employed the workers, and produced the goods. Today, that company is more likely to be a “brand” that outsources every part of its production. That brand, driven by shareholder demands for maximum profit (the influence of “finance capital”), places immense pressure on its main suppliers for lower costs and faster turnarounds.

Finding a foothold in the global production chain 🔗

To meet these demands, the main supplier subcontracts the work. And that subcontractor might subcontract it again. The work cascades down this chain until it lands on the floor of Seema’s home. She has “explicit participation” in the labour market-she is, after all, stitching a garment for a global brand-but she is at the very bottom of a chain designed to transfer all risk downwards.

When a fast-fashion brand in Europe cancels an order or demands a sudden price cut, it’s not the CEO who feels the pinch. It’s the women at the end of the chain. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this system was laid bare. Major brands cancelled billions of dollars in orders from factories in countries like Bangladesh and India. This led to millions of workers, mostly women, being sent home without pay for work they had already done. They had fuelled the profits of these global companies, but when crisis hit, they were abandoned.

Occupational segregation and the gender system 🔗

This global system doesn’t just exploit existing inequalities; it deepens them. It relies on a pre-existing “gender system” that devalues women’s work. Within this system, we see stark “occupational segregation.” In a garment factory, men might be mechanics or cutters, which are seen as “skilled” jobs with higher pay. Women are overwhelmingly concentrated in the sewing and finishing departments, which are labelled “unskilled” or “semi-skilled” and paid far less.

This segregation is even more pronounced in the informal economy. Research highlights how home-based workers bear production risks (like faulty raw materials), street vendors face constant harassment and risk of eviction, and waste pickers are cheated on weights and prices by middlemen. These are not random, unfortunate events. They are systemic features of an economic model that treats women as a cheap, flexible, and disposable resource.

From isolation to solidarity: The rise of collective action 🔗

For decades, the standard response to these problems was individual. A woman would try to work longer hours, borrow from a moneylender, or pull her children out of school to help. But the very isolation that made her vulnerable also concealed a powerful truth: she was not alone. Millions of other women faced the exact same struggles.

The realisation that individual problems are actually shared, structural issues is the spark that ignites collective action. Unfair work conditions, wage theft, and systemic harassment became the breaking point. Women began to talk to each other, comparing pay, sharing grievances, and, most importantly, imagining a different way.

This is where the story of resistance begins. It’s a story of women challenging not just a single bad employer, but the entire gender system that told them their work was worthless and that they should be silent. They began to demand visibility, recognition as “workers,” and a voice at the table.

A case study in strength: The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) 🔗

Perhaps the most powerful example of this mobilisation in the world is the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India. Founded in 1972 by the Gandhian activist Ela Bhatt, SEWA began with a small group of cart-pullers and head-loaders in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. These women were exploited by middlemen and harassed by police, invisible to the formal trade union movement which didn’t consider them “workers” at all.

SEWA’s approach was revolutionary. It combined two powerful models:

1. A Trade Union: It organised women as workers to fight for their rights, demanding fair wages, better conditions, and an end to harassment. It gave them a collective voice to negotiate with police, municipal authorities, and suppliers.
2. A Cooperative: It helped women build their own economic institutions. They formed cooperatives for artisans, farmers, and milk producers, allowing them to bypass middlemen and control their own supply chains.

The movement’s genius was its holistic view of a woman’s life. They understood that being a “worker” was inseparable from being a woman, a mother, and a community member. This understanding is enshrined in SEWA’s “Eleven Point Approach,” which seeks full employment and self-reliance by addressing not just income, but also health, childcare, nutrition, housing, and education. A landmark achievement was the founding of the SEWA Bank in 1974, a cooperative bank owned by its women members. For the first time, informal workers, who were denied access to formal credit, could get loans, build assets, and achieve financial independence.

Today, SEWA is a movement of over 3.2 million women across India. It has shown, definitively, that informal workers *can* be organised. It has challenged occupational segregation by training women in non-traditional skills and given them leadership roles. Most profoundly, it has challenged the gender system by building an economic ecosystem based on solidarity, dignity, and empowerment, proving that women like Seema are not just victims, but powerful agents of change.

The story of women’s resistance in the informal economy is far from over. The global economic pressures that create vulnerability are stronger than ever. But the path forged by movements like SEWA provides a powerful blueprint. It shows that by coming together, sharing their struggles, and building their own institutions, the most invisible workers can gain the strength to not only challenge inequality but to build a more just and equitable economy for everyone.

What do you think? When you buy a product, like a piece of clothing or a food item, do you ever consider the long, often invisible, chain of hands that brought it to you? What other ways, besides forming unions, do you think informal workers can build power and demand fair treatment in our modern global economy?

References

1. https://indiaemployerforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Invisible-Yet-Indispensable_-Women-Trapped-in-the-Informal-Workforce.pdf
2. https://ijlsss.com/analyzing-how-women-workers-in-informal-sector-are-vulnerable-to-exploitation-and-their-legal-protection/
3. https://views-voices.oxfam.org.uk/2022/03/informal-work-traps-millions-of-women-in-poverty-lets-back-the-labour-movements-that-can-fight-for-decent-jobs/
4. https://www.wiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WIEGO-expanding-econ-potential-informal-workers.pdf
5. https://sewabharat.org/sewa-movement/