Social insurance provision for women in the urban informal sector : interpreting the successful strategy of Working Women's Forum, India

Since the late-1980s, the world's workers have experienced two strikingly coordinated global trends. The first is an unpredicted decline in secure, formally employed labor, and subsequent growth in informal labor. The second is an unprecedented decline in state welfare rhetoric and policy. These simultaneous trends have resulted in an increase in the proportion of workers that do not receive secure wages or social benefits from either the employer or the state. As this notion of the "benevolent" state purported in the 1950's disintegrates, one finds development literature focusing squarely on formation of social movements as solutions. This study examines the efforts of one such social movement-Working Women's Forum, India (WWF)-which has been successful in providing social protection (insurance) for over 8,00,000 women in the urban informal sector in Tamilnadu, Andhra and Karnataka. This case study looks at linkages between WWF and insurers: Government and Private owned. The curiosity that guides the research is regarding a) opportunities involved in such linkages towards a wider coverage of women in the informal sector, and b) identifying different state characteristics that influence different levels of success among informal workers organizations' ability to secure labor benefits.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Azad, Mithila

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bishwapriya Sanyal.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37464

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37464