Skip to main content

WHAT IS INFORMAL SECTOR SOCIOLOGY UPSC

 WHAT IS INFORMAL SECTOR 

Workers in the formal sector are engaged in factories, commercial and service establishments and their working conditions, wages and social security measures are legally protected. Moreover, a range of labour laws, guaranteeing permanency of employment and provision for retirement benefits, protect their jobs.

Workers who are not in the formal sector are in the informal sector.


CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR

 In 1970, J. Keith Hart, an anthropologist who specialised in African societies, was working for a research project of the International Labour Organisation.
he gave name, ‘informal sector’ to unorganized sector.

1. Low levels of skill. Workers in this sector have low levels of education and thus they have low skills. This is the reason why they are engaged in jobs involving low technology. Worker in the formal sector have higher degree of skill and their position in the labour is better

2. Easy entry. Getting work in the informal sector is comparatively easier than in the formal sector. Hart’s study shows that any able bodied person, irrespective of the skills possessed can become a day labourer. With minimum investment the same person can become a street vendor and sell her/his wares at the market. The person need not have money to invest in a shop. In this way the informal sector is able to absorb more workers who would normally not get any work because they are either not qualified or they do not have capital for investing in business

3. Low paid employment. Because of the requirement of low skills and the easy entry, work in the informal sector has low returns. Workers who offer their labour are not paid high wages. In fact, the biggest grievance against this sector is that the wages are many times below sustenance level. In many cases, low wages drive other members of the family into the informal work force because the main wage earned is not sufficient for sustaining a household. In this sense, children too may be encouraged to join the labour force.

4. The fourth characteristic of the informal sector, according to Hart is that it is largely composed of immigrant labour. Hart found that the informal sector worker in Ghana had come to the city from the rural areas. As mentioned earlier, workers and small traders in the city came from the rural areas in search of a livelihood. He hence included migrant status as a characteristic of the informal sector.

INFORMAL SECTOR HAS GROWN TREMENDOUSLY, AND EVEN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES HAVE A GROWING SECTION OF WORKERS WHO ARE IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR

Street vendors form a very large section of the urban informal sector in developing countries A lot of the goods sold by street vendors, such as clothes and hosiery, leather and moulded plastic goods, household goods and some items of food, are manufactured in small scale or home.

Poor section fulfill their needs from these vendors because food etc so cheap

Urban poor, namely, street vendors, helps another section to survive.

Most Indian cities the urban poor survive by working in the informal sector. Poverty and lack of gainful employment in the rural areas and in the smaller towns drive large numbers of people to the cities for work and livelihood.. In developed countries self employed people are mainly immigrants from developing countrie


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is culture ? Everything about culture Sociology UPSC

Culture  Culture represents the beliefs, practices and artifact of a group. Almost every human behavior, from shopping to marriage to expressions of feelings, is learned.  Material culture & Nonmaterial culture Material culture refers to the objects or belongings of a group of people. Metro passes and bus tokens are part of material culture, as are automobiles, stores, and the physical structures where people worship. Nonmaterial culture, in contrast, consists of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society. Material and nonmaterial aspects of culture are linked, and physical objects often symbolize cultural ideas. Clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry are part of material culture, but the appropriateness of wearing certain clothing for specific events reflects nonmaterial culture Cultural universal Cultural universals are patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies. One example of a cultural universal is the family unit: every human society recognizes a fam...
1 comment
Read more

WHAT IS RELIGION ?SOCIOLOGY UPSC

 WHAT IS RELIGION? RELIGION IS FORM OF PERSONAL DELIGHT FOR SOME OTHER ITS A HABIT. RELIGION? Durkheim described it with the ethereal statement that it consists of “things that surpass the limits of our knowledge. MAX WEBER believed Protestant values influenced the rise of capitalism and helped create the modern world order. Karl Marx (1818–1883) also studied the social impact of religion. He believed religion reflects the social stratification of society and that it maintains inequality and perpetuates the status quo. RELIGION HOLDIND DIFFERENT MEANING TO DIFFRENT PERSON  SOURCE OF SALVATION  PURIFIES HEART AND SOUL  OBSTACLE TO MODERNITY  OPIUM OF THE MASSES  Durkheim argued that “religion happens” in society when there is a separation between the profane (ordinary life) and the sacred . A rock, for example, isn’t sacred or profane as it exists. But if someone makes it into a headstone, or another person uses it for landscaping, it takes on different mean...
Post a Comment
Read more

Émile Durkheim his contribution to sociology for UPSC UGCNET

  Émile  Durkheim  (1858-1917) He  was  a  French  sociologist  widely  regarded  as  one  of  modern  sociology's  founding   fathers. He  was  born  in  Épinal,  France,  and  attended  the  École  Normale  Supérieure  in  Paris  to  study  philosophy. Durkheim's  early  work  concentrated  on  the  social  division  of  labor  and  the  creation  of  the   notion  of  social  solidarity. Durkheim  saw  society  as  a  complicated  system  with  many  interrelated  pieces. He  contended  that  the  division  of  labor  in  society  fostered  a  sense  of  solidarity  among  individuals  and  that  t...
Post a Comment
Read more