Structural Adjustment and Women Informal Sector Traders in Harare, Zimbabwe

Download or read book Structural Adjustment and Women Informal Sector Traders in Harare, Zimbabwe written by Rodreck Mupedziswa and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 1998 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most attempts to study the informal sector have tended to emphasize uniformity of experiences. Where an effort has been made to develop a more nuanced understanding, the assumption has always been that people move from lower to higher level activities that coincide with increased opportunities for accumulation. This report challenges both notions. Drawing on the experiences of women informal sector traders in Harare, Zimbabwe, and using a longitudinal study approach, the authors document differentiation within the sector amidst generalized decline in working and living conditions. Far from being a site of accumulation, the authors show that the informal sector during the era of adjustment is a site of bare survival in which people work ever longer hours for ever-diminishing incomes on which many competing claims are made within and outside the household.