Paper short abstract:

This paper inquires the feminization of labour force in informal sector of Nigerian economy after the fractured application of structural adjustment programme. Family survival strategies have depended more on women engaged in informal sector rather than on neoliberal economic policies.

Paper long abstract:

Breakdown of socio-cultural, economic and political boundaries of countries demonstrated by the process of globalization in a multipolar world has also demonstrated consequences deep down in the familial relationships. For a predominantly agricultural economy like Nigeria; where agriculture provides employment to almost 70% of the population, changes thus transpired in the labour force are typical of a missing stage of "Precondition for take off" (Walt W. Rostow, 1962) for an economy. Already shocked by petroleum crisis in late 1970s, inefficient application of Structural Adjustment Programme in 1980s became a burden on Nigerian economy. Women engaged in the informal sector however have emerged as a strong societal and familial response to the fractured economic policy. In Nigeria, 2006 Census declared 76 percent of the total employed women as engaged in informal sector primarily as sales workers, craft and production workers assisting their families as only source of survival. Women, who are considered to be second class citizens even in the Fourth Republic of Nigeria, have been able to sustain families both in rural and urban cities utilizing their unskilled labour in petty trading, handicraft, vocational enterprises, agro processing, artisanal fishing, street trading, waste collection and home based enterprises. Extended female headed household and family survival strategies thus have become instrumental after the feminization of labour force in the informal sector of Nigerian economy. Women support groups and networks are some of the strong feminist responses (for survival) to neoliberal economic policies in Nigeria such as NEEDS and SEEDS.