There are more women in informal employment than men

A new book ‘The Role of Women in Ghana’s Economy has found that that there are more women in informal economic activities than men in the three economic areas, namely, agriculture, industry and services.
The author, Nora Judith Amu estimates that some 80% of women in Ghana are engaged in various economic activities and they predominate in the informal micro-small to medium scale agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors of the economy.
While the informal sector gives women the flexibility they need to cope with their multiple roles as workers, wives and mothers, the remuneration is highly unstable and therefore their earnings vary from period to period.
Also they lack social security since the informal sector is no well structured to lend itself to the social security contributions and benefits.
Consequently, those in the informal sector retire without any social security thus leaving the burden of caring for them on family and society at large.
Furthermore, women’s work at the informal sector is basically at the subsistence level and thus their income is relatively low compared to their male counterparts in the same sector.
However, their contribution to economic growth and development is not adequately represented because the majority of their activities are in the informal low-growth-low-return areas and are basically subsistent.
Women in most societies play a crucial role as food producers, providers and managers. In rural communities, women are responsible for fetching fuel wood and water for cultivation.
Women are important actors in the food chain and are responsible for food security in Ghana. However, food crops do not have guaranteed prices and rare therefore subject to the vagaries of market prices, which rise and fall with the quantity of harvest per period.
Unfortunately, most of the work that women do are not considered as economic activities but are rather seen as traditional chore to which they are duty bound to perform.
Apart from agriculture women are also active in the industrial sector, hence the concentration of women in manufacturing may be understandable because of the activities carried out in this sub sector which include food and beverages, textiles ad leather, wood products and furniture, chemical and petroleum products and metallic and mineral products and plastics.
According to the author, the participation of women in the services is highly skewed towards the wholesale and retail sub-sector. Very few are found in the relatively more specialized sub-sectors of services. It reflects the general low ambitions for women.
It is important to note that while some women are generally un-ambitious, there are a number of them who as a result of their cultural background and their socialization processes, have been made to believe that cannot aspire for bigger things in life.
Rural women are the most disadvantaged in terms of access to education and pother forms of formal and informal training programmes.
Given such limitations, they are mostly engaged in subsistence farming. Low-income generating activities, while poor urban women operate marginal enterprises in the formal sector.
The author recommends that care needs to be taken to ensure that income-generating activities are profitable and loan products appropriate. Otherwise, women may need to convert savings goods into cash for loan repayment, thus impoverishing themselves further.