This week’s Field Notes challenged a simple assumption: having a job does not always mean having economic security. Across the world, millions of women work as domestic workers, street vendors, home-based producers, caregivers, and waste pickers. WIEGO estimates that 55% of working women are informally employed. Their labor supports households, communities, and entire economies, yet many remain outside the systems that provide stable income, social protection, or legal

Informal workers are often described by what they lack: contracts, benefits, stable income, or legal protection. India's SEWA Cooperative Federation offers another way to look at the issue, through what workers can build together. For more than three decades, SEWA has supported women-owned cooperatives across fields including finance, childcare, healthcare, agriculture, insurance, handicrafts, waste management, and cleaning services. The cooperative model allows informa

Flexible work is usually presented as freedom. For many women in Cambodia's informal economy, however, flexibility can mean something more complicated. A 2025 UNDP study found that women's employment choices are shaped not only by skills or available jobs, but also by expectations surrounding family care and ideas about what kinds of work are considered appropriate for women. Informal jobs can offer flexible hours and immediate income, while formal employment may bring

Who cleans a home, sells food on a street corner, sews products from home, or collects the waste a city leaves behind? These jobs are easy to overlook, yet they are part of an informal economy employing nearly two billion people worldwide. According to WIEGO, 55% of working women are in informal employment. Domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors, market traders, and waste pickers are among the groups that keep households and cities functioning while often

Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration set out an ambitious vision for women's economic equality. Since then, more women have entered the workforce, but the ILO's latest review shows how incomplete that progress remains. The global gender employment gap has narrowed by only four percentage points in three decades, while women remain overrepresented in informal work. That distinction matters. Being employed does not automatically mean having a stable income, social pr