ABSTRACT
This documentation of homeworking is rooted in a wider understanding of women’s work which has implications not simply for women but for employment policy as a whole. Several factors have contributed to this significant shift in perspective. The feminist movement has challenged a narrow definition of work, pointing to the interconnection between the home and employment and this has had repercussions in a growing recognition of the significance of gender in economic development. Over the last decade, women’s networks internationally have collected and exchanged information about the conditions of poor women in both the formal and the informal sector (Brett 1991; Boris and Prugl 1996). Moreover as the evidence has come in of the proliferating informal sector globally, terms such as ‘atypical’ have begun to look increasingly inappropriate. A new
paradigm of employment is clearly needed, not only to comprehend the changing realities of the poor, but to develop effective strategies for reform (Holland 1993).
