Labour, employment and social policy:

1
8th International Summer Conference on Knowledge
Networking and Engendering Macroeconomics, Gender
and International Economics (GEM-IWG) Instanbul
July 20-26th 2007

• Labour, employment and social policy
• the case of Argentina.
• Corina Rodríguez Enríquez
• Conicet - Ciepp, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• crodriguezenriquez_at_ciepp.org.ar

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Case study and main questions

• Conditional cash transfer assistance program
  Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados (PJJHD) ?
  workfare program
• Does it improve access to labour market?
• Does it modify labour trajectories?
• Hypothesis
• Weak impact on labour trajectories and labour
  market opportunities
• Negative gender impact
• Consolidates labour market segregation
• Does not modify labour market access barriers
  faced by women

3
Context

• Two decades of ortodox economic policies
  structural adjustment
• 2001 crisis colapse of government and the
  convertibility rule
• Devaluation and inflation
• 42,2 of households and 54,3 of population below
  poverty line
• 16,9 of households and 24,3 of population below
  indigence line

4
Labour market indicators
5
PJJHD Characteristics

• Money transfer U 50 per month
• Targeted program
• Conditionality
• Head of household with children
• Unemployed
• Children school attendance
• Work requirement 4 to 6 hours per day
• Budget U 1.2 billon
• Beneficiaries 1.8 million ? 900 thousand

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General Analysis of PJJHD

• Positive
• Almost 2 millons poor people (and their families)
  receiving U50.- per month in the context of
  social critical situation.
• Women activation
• But
• Low level of benefit less than 20 of poverty
  line for a typical family
• Low coverage excludes many poor people that are
  not targeted
• Constant family benefit does not take into
  account family composition (ie number of
  children)
• Low impact in terms of poverty and indigence head
  count ratio
• Clientelism
• Unemployment and informal work trap
• Required work low skills, no social protection,
  gender segregation

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New Context 2003 economy recovery
8
Leaving the program to enter a job
9
Labour trajectories panel data from the labour
force survey
10
Labour trajectories age, education, care
responsabilities

• younger people (both men and women) and women in
  central ages present the greatest difficulties to
  move into employment, or to remain in it
• womens higher relative transit towards
  inactivity, compared with that of men, or womens
  permanence in that status, is important both
  among younger women and women in central ages
• different educational levels do not seem to be
  relevant when analyzing the transit across
  different status during the period under study.
  In the context of a certain homogeneity, people
  with lower educational level, and particularly
  women, outstand with a higher transit to
  inactivity
• women with more than two children younger than 10
  years old in the household show lower relative
  permanence in employment.

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PJJHD the view from the beneficiaries

• Occupational trajectories previous to the plan
  were related to informal employments in the case
  of men, and with inactivity in the case of women
• The most frequent occupational trajectories in
  the case of women indicate early school dropout
  precarious work experiences (informal employments
  in commerce or paid domestic work) until marriage
  or the birth of the first child complete dropout
  from any activity in the labour market due to
  parenting and domestic responsibilities entry
  into the PJJHD from inactivity
• None of the beneficiaries consider that the plan
  is granting a right (to social inclusion, to an
  employment, to an income in the absence of an
  employment). The majority of the opinions refer
  to the benefit as an aid which complements other
  job incomes from the family group, thus allowing
  a precarious level of consumption.

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PJJHD the view from the beneficiaries

• The beneficiaries perception of the required
  work shows how some traditional values are deeply
  rooted i) to consider paid job as the legitimate
  way to obtain the needed income, and as the way
  to contribute to society and community ii) the
  invisibilization and depreciation of other type
  of works such as unpaid caregiving staying at
  home even looking after the children is regarded
  as becoming lazy.
• These values are sustained even when the majority
  of the beneficiaries are women who find domestic
  responsibilities as the principal obstacle to
  exercise the required work and to enter possible
  future job in the labour market.
• It is important to highlight the coincidence
  between the values expressed by the beneficiaries
  and those promoted by the public policy
  interventions i) that employment is the only
  legitimate way to earn ones living ii) that the
  lack of employment is an individual
  responsibility iii) that this may be expiated
  through the social reciprocity required to the
  beneficiaries iv) that looking after the
  children is also an individual responsibility
  that must be settled within the privacy of
  households.

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PJJHD the view from the beneficiaries

• The majority of the beneficiaries consider the
  existence of the required work positively.
  However, this is regarded as a matter of
  reciprocity (you must do something in exchange
  for what the State is giving you), and not as a
  mechanism of training or practice for employment,
  or as individual skills improvement for a future
  job.
• Not appreciating the required work as useful from
  a labour point of view is mainly related to the
  type of work performed. On one end, there are
  cases where the compensation activity consists of
  some sort of political activity (meetings,
  marches, electoral acts, activities in
  neighbourhood centers related to political
  parties). In these cases, relation with the
  labour market is not even present.
• There are other cases where the required work
  consists on the performance of some type of
  social service for the community. The majority of
  the beneficiaries were in this category. It is
  clear that the beneficiaries do not see this as a
  labour activity, nor as a practice that may
  improve their possibilities in future jobs. They
  do not recognize this as a job. They do not talk
  about working for the plan, but rather about
  complying with the four hours.
• There are two situations where the required work
  is better appreciated a) when it is performed in
  the context of productive cooperative
  organizations or undertakings originated with the
  plan, generally organized by social movements b)
  when people attend job training courses.

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Alternative To change social policy orientation

• Value universal basic security i) autonomy ii)
  opportunity to develop ones own skills and
  capabilities iii) economic security
• Strategy combination of articulated policies
• Alternative 1 security through labour market
  ELR
• Alternative 2 separate income security from
  labour security
• Income support policy (as universal as possible)
• Employment policies
• Alternative 3 re-organization of human
  activities
• Same status to productive and care activities
• Same status for the right to work and for the
  right to income support
• Reorganization of time (best combination of
  productive, care and leisure activities)
• In any case
• Public care policy is needed
• Policy actions against occupational segregation
• Active policies to challenge subjective
  configuration of work all human activity is
  work.
• The goal to widen women and men chances to
  choose a certain combination of productive and
  reproductive activities, with no negative
  consequence in terms of economic deprivation,
  cultural subordination or inequality persistence