User:Renatap0625/Corporate social responsibility

The Informal Sector in CSR
The informal sector constitutes for home-based workers which can include subcontracting, casual labor markets, and self-employment such as through sweatshops and unlicensed factories. The informal sector has increased expansion in developed and undeveloped countries. Women make up a huge percentage of the informal sector. In South Asia, the percentage of women in the informal sector is around 90 percent, 89 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and 59 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Women are working as home-based workers for the large global value chains and represent a crucial piece in the production process of certain goods through the supply chain. Women who are working in the informal sector are facing poor working conditions such as long hours, low wages, and dangerous conditions. They are working in what is known as the “grey economy” because it often leaves women without labour law protection, social benefits, and many are subject to unsafe conditions. In developed countries such as Greece, Italy, Germany, and France, women’s average pensions are 30 percent lower than mens.

The garment industry in Australia hires a stable workforce to uphold many of their operations, but hires  subcontractor workers on the side as a way to keep up with production. The Australian garment industry does not have to account for the subcontracted workers costs of annual leave, overtime pay, sick leave, and other necessary documented accounts and payments. In Australia, for every factory worker, there were 15 homeworkers and by the mid-1990s there were around 330,000 homeworkers. Women also are the majority of self-employed workers who work in the agricultural sector. Globally, women are collecting medicinal plants in India and Latin America, collect gum shell Brazil nuts in Peru, and account for much of the growing fruits and vegetables that are distributed to the U.S. and Europe.