GLOBALIZATION AND GENDER PARTICIPATION IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN DEVELOPING AND TRANSITIONAL COUNTRIES

Relatively little has been written on the impact of globalization on women who work in informal economy. This paper seeks to fill this gap by focussing on the impact of globalization on women who work in the informal economy. In other words, the author tried to find the relationship between globalization, informality and decent work. In addition, in this paper, the author analyses the growth of the informal economy in developing and countries in transition. Namely, the paper was prepared with a special emphasis on the transitional and developing countries, using bibliography and information made available by the ILO and our own research results. The author concludes that the existence of the informal economy can no longer be considered as a temporary phenomenon. The average size of the hidden economy in the 1990s in transition countries was more than twofold than that of the developed market economies. It has proven to be a major source of employment and income generation for the poor, and thus understanding the informal sector provides valuable tools in the fight against poverty. At the same time, the author stresses that women in the informal sector face significant obstacles: low pay; lack of access to such resources as capital, education, and training; and exclusion from the policy-making process. Macro- and micro-economic policies, including structural adjustment, most often do not take given factors and their negative impacts on women into account, especially on those that belong to marginal groups or those that are exposed to a larger poverty risk. Because that, the author also considers the battle against discrimination in relation to women workers.