As the world grapples with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable workers in the informal sector in the global south have been hit hard. As vendors working in close quarters and or as frontline care-workers in households, many are particularly vulnerable to contracting the virus.
Watch the recording
Read the summary of this event, and see the speakers’ presentations here.
A lack of institutionalised sick leave means that for many informal employees, there is an explicit trade-off between their health and their financial survival. While necessary phases of lockdown are threatening livelihoods in the informal economy, government relief efforts are frequently only reaching formal workers and businesses.
This Digital Roundtable aims to bring together scholars on informality working across the globe to compare experiences and discuss both how we can better understand the crisis’ effects on informal economies and which relief efforts are or should be made.
The Roundtable will include brief interventions from all the speakers, followed by an open discussion.
Speakers
- Kate Meagher, Associate Professor in Development Studies, Department of International Development, LSE
- Umair Javed, Assistant Professor. Department Of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS
- Gerard McCarthy, Postdoctoral Fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
- Vanessa van den Boogaard, Research Fellow, IDS
- Max Gallien, Research Fellow, IDS
- Rachel Moussie, Deputy Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO