More than a quarter of the workers in the city of Rosario belong to the popular economy, according to a report from the UNR Data Center.
Around 120.000 Rosarinos, which represents 26,2% of the city's employed population, are outside the classic forms of work, they self-organize their capacities, physical energies and means of production to obtain income that allows them to survive. and that of their families. The majority are women, 35 years old or older, they work in private homes and carry out non-professional jobs.
The data comes from the report “Approaches and characterization of work in the popular economy in Rosario” prepared by the UNR Data Center together with the Observatory of Public Policies of the Popular, Social and Solidarity Economy and the Center for Political and Work Studies in the Popular, Social and Solidarity Economy based on the latest Rosario Household Survey.
“Formal, salaried work, as we knew it in the 20th century, the one that we longed for and with which we identified, is in crisis and for several decades statistics have shown that this is the case,” says the PhD in Social Sciences. and UNR professor María Victoria Deux Marzi and explains that there is a third of the economically active population that works within the framework of the formal economy, a third does so under informal, unregistered salaried conditions and a third within the framework of the economy. popular. In this sense she considers that this economy cannot be denied or made invisible.
Within the popular economy, the predominant occupations are non-professional self-employed workers (66,7%) and private household workers (27,8%). The remaining percentage (less than 5,5%) is distributed between those whose income comes from employment plans and those who work assisting a family member without remuneration.
The largest group is dedicated to providing services in the homes of their clients/employers (29,5%). This category groups workers in private homes and those who carry out trades and provide gardening, plumbing, electrical services, among others. They are followed by those dedicated to wholesale and retail trade, vehicle and motorcycle repair (25,3%). To a lesser extent, they carry out activities grouped in the category “Other community, social and personal services” (12,2%). These include those related to aesthetics (nails, hairdressing, barbershop, etc.) and urban recyclers. Finally, 7,8% of this population is employed in construction.
These activities are carried out in different places, the most frequent being the street and public spaces, either on an itinerant basis or in a mobile stand, the home of the employer, partner or client or a premises or workshop. It is worth noting the differences with workplaces for the total employed population, where activities in a premises, office, establishment, business or workshop prevail and mobile work represents only 3,9% of the total occupations.
Regarding the level of education achieved, 45% of workers in the popular economy have completed primary school and/or incomplete secondary school and 41,8% completed secondary school and/or began higher education without completing it. Likewise, a minority has completed higher education. This situation represents a difference with respect to the rest of the city's employed population, where a greater proportion of people with completed higher education is observed. That is to say, the educational level achieved by people who work in the popular economy is lower than that of the total workforce and more than half did not complete the mandatory level of education.
One fact to highlight is that this sector is feminized: of the total number of employees in the city, women reach 46,2% and in the case of the popular economy they reach 59,9%. In relation to the length of the working day, 55% work less than 35 hours per week, 25,4% between 35 and 45 hours and 19,6% more than 45 hours. Here it is observed that within the first group, which works part-time, female participation is predominant. On the contrary, among the total number of employed people in Rosario, women have longer hours, with 56,4% of them reaching overemployment.
"We could conjecture that jobs in the popular economy are chosen mainly because they allow them to be compatible with care work, that is, women can cut jobs to pick up the children from school or work at home to care for the sick or elderly who live in the home," analyzes the Graduate in Economics and highlights that "a female overload is observed in care tasks and unpaid work, but in the case of the popular economy this inequality is greater."
Unpaid domestic and care tasks fall mainly on women, who dedicate 6:15 hours a day, while men do 2:52 hours a day. This gap in time is greater than in the total employed population where the difference is 5:48 hours and 3:08 hours, respectively, but shows the same trend.
On the other hand, half of the workers in the popular economy have health coverage from their work, while for the total number of employed people in Rosario this proportion rises to 70%. This is then a population with a greater need for public health coverage. Another fact is that 48,8% of people employed in the popular economy are in charge of the head of their household. The predominant family structures are concentrated in couples with children, followed by those cases of extended family and mother/father without a spouse with children. This characterization replicates the distribution of cases in the rest of the homes in the city.
Regarding housing conditions, the proportion of homes with overcrowding is higher than in the rest of the homes where workers from the popular economy do not live. And a similar situation arises in relation to sanitation conditions. Only 44,3% of households with workers in the popular economy have access to services (gas, mains water and/or sewage), while this proportion rises to 60% for the rest of the Rosario households.
“The data show that the working and living conditions of those who work in the popular economy are more precarious and are more unprotected than the rest of the employed population,” maintains Deux Marzi and highlights that even so, “they manage to solve needs for yes, for your family and for the community”, for example in dining rooms and picnic areas, one of the main branches of activities in this sector.
The researcher considers that as it is an economy that produces, that generates work, that solves needs and that is also growing, "we need to have periodic, systematic and representative statistics that reflect the labor characteristics of this entire universe, as a contribution to guide state and civil society actions in the search for better working and living conditions for these labor groups.”
Journalist: Victoria Arrabal/Photographer: Camila Casero