The following data from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu give some idea of the extent of women’s activities in the informal sector and their importance to family security.
Solomon Islands, 1993. (Sample size: 323 randomly selected women.) Vanuatu, 1994. (Sample size: 949 women market vendors from Efate, Santo, Malekula and Ambae).
Two-thirds of a sample were self-employed at the time of the interviews. Of this two thirds, 75 per cent said they spent 16 hours or more each week on their income-generating ventures.
More than one third of these women were sole income providers.
Agriculture was the major enterprise—farm gardening (38 per cent), food catering (21 per cent), crafts (15 per cent) and textiles (11 per cent).
40 per cent sold their products directly to consumers at the market, 34 per cent sold from their homes, and 16 per cent from shops.
Over 75 per cent had not received any assistance to run their businesses, whether from relatives, banks or other sources.
75 per cent were married (average 5 children) and 25 per cent lived in households of more than seven people. More than 50 per cent had only a few years of primary school education and almost one-fifth had no formal education at all. 25 per cent were not able to write in any language and almost one-third could not do any calculations.
Source: Ward, M. and Arias, F., 1995. Employment for Women in Solomon Islands, National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University and ILO/UNDP, Canberra.
The survey found
profits from these sales was the household’s major source of income for 64 per cent of the sample—89 per cent of these profits was spent on household expenses including food, 37 per cent on school fees
agricultural goods were the major items sold. However, women did not specialise in any one item but engaged in multiple economic activities (MEA) thus spreading their risks over a number of options, and working at any activity which would ‘ensure our children have food on the table’
the main source of loans to develop their business for 73 per cent, was from family members; 18 per cent obtained them from an unstated source, 12 per cent from commercial banks and credit unions; and 4 per cent borrowed from the Development Bank
28 per cent has attended a training course.
Source: Women’s Business Unit of the Department of Cooperatives and Rural Business Development, and Statistics Department, Vanuatu.