Breaking down the question
This is a short-note question, so the examiner wants a tightly focused account of a single concept rather than a sprawling essay. "Feminisation of labour in the informal sector" has two joined parts: the rising share and visibility of women in paid work, and the concentration of that work in the unorganised, unprotected informal economy. A good answer defines feminisation, locates it in the informal sector, and evaluates whether it represents genuine empowerment or a new form of exploitation.
Precision matters. Feminisation of labour means both a numerical rise in women's participation and a qualitative shift by which jobs themselves become "feminised" — casual, low-paid, insecure and flexible, whether held by women or men. Anchoring the term this way, after Guy Standing's influential formulation, prevents the answer from drifting into a general essay on women's status.
How to approach it
Open with a crisp definition that captures both the quantitative and qualitative senses of feminisation, then situate it in the informal sector — home-based work, domestic service, petty trade, construction and agriculture — where the great majority of women workers in developing societies are found. Our notes on labour and society set out the structure of the informal economy.
Then evaluate. Present the empowerment reading — income, autonomy and a foothold in the public sphere — against the exploitation reading — low wages, no security, no benefits and a double burden of paid and domestic work. Conclude with a balanced judgement that feminisation in the informal sector expands opportunity and deepens vulnerability at once.
Model answer
The feminisation of labour refers to the growing entry of women into paid employment and, at the same time, to the transformation of the jobs available so that they take on characteristics long associated with women's work — low pay, casual tenure, flexibility and absence of protection. Guy Standing argued that global economic restructuring has both drawn women into the workforce and "feminised" employment itself by making it more precarious. In developing societies this process is overwhelmingly concentrated in the informal sector, the vast unorganised economy that lies outside labour law, social security and stable contracts.
Women predominate in precisely those informal activities that are least visible and least protected: home-based piece-work and garment stitching, domestic service, street vending and petty trade, agricultural labour, beedi rolling and construction. Such work is attractive to employers because it is cheap and disposable, and accessible to women because it can often be combined with domestic responsibilities and requires little formal qualification. The result is that women form the backbone of the informal economy while remaining at its lowest and most insecure rungs.
The consequences are genuinely double-edged. On one side, paid work brings women independent income, a measure of financial autonomy, enhanced bargaining power within the household and entry into the public sphere, which can loosen patriarchal control and raise self-worth. Self-employment and micro-credit have allowed some women to build small enterprises. On the other side, informal work is marked by wages well below male rates for comparable tasks, no job security, no maternity or health benefits, exposure to unsafe conditions and vulnerability to harassment. Because women continue to bear almost the whole burden of unpaid domestic and care work, paid employment adds a "double burden" rather than replacing household duties. The concentration of women in the poorest paid, most casual work also feeds the wider feminisation of poverty.
Feminisation of labour in the informal sector is therefore best read not as straightforward liberation nor as pure exploitation, but as a contradictory process. It widens women's economic participation and can enlarge their agency, yet it does so on deeply unequal terms that reproduce gendered disadvantage in a new setting. Whether it empowers or entrenches subordination depends on the presence of protective law, collective organisation — as pioneered by bodies such as SEWA — and social recognition of unpaid care work.
Examiner's perspective
For a 15-mark short note the examiner wants conceptual sharpness and a clear structure, not length. The commonest weakness is to answer a different question — a general essay on the status of women — instead of pinning down feminisation of labour in its double sense and locating it specifically in the informal sector.
The strongest answers define the term precisely, illustrate it with concrete informal occupations, and then weigh the empowerment and exploitation readings before reaching a balanced conclusion. Invoking Standing's account of precarity and the link to the feminisation of poverty signals wider reading, while a closing line tying real empowerment to protective law and collective organisation demonstrates evaluative judgement within a compact answer.