Earnings of Self Employed in an Informal Sector: A Case Study of Bangkok

Saral Teilhet-Waldorf and William.H.Waldorf

Economic development and cultural change, Vol. 31,No. 3 (April 1983), pp. 587 – 607

The essay discusses the study of the urban self employed in the informal sector in comparison to the unskilled labor markets in the formal sector of the city of Bangkok.

The research sample includes 79 self employed people from 3 different occupational backgrounds (vendors, shopkeepers and brick people) comprising of both men and women of varying age groups and tries to understand the earning trends that can be found in this group.

The research also proceeds to analyze the effects, if any, of education, job experience and sexual discrimination has on their earnings and discusses the contrast between the types of work between the Formal and Informal sectors. While the formal sector is more ordered and requires a labor force that is skilled, the informal sector is just the opposite. This discussion is put in context through the analysis of the shift of jobs made by laborers of both the formal as well as the informal sector.

Being a very intimate research, the sample set is a meager 79 informants. This reduces the possibilities of a great amount of variation in the findings. However, there are quite a few helpful pointers that comes out of this research.

Findings

First and most surprising, the research finds that the average earnings of the self employed is significantly higher than the unskilled workers of the formal sector jobs.

Earnings of the brick people and the shopkeepers increased with on job experience whereas this was not quite the case with vendors.

Even though it was a small sample, nearly all the informants had only 4 or fewer years of schooling (the legal minimum) thus hinting that formal education was not a barrier for such jobs.

Hourly earnings were similar for both men and women vendors thus suggesting that there was no sexual discrimination.

Higher earnings of some vendors was because they sold cooked food which was a value addition.

Keywords

urban self-employed, informal sector, earnings, unskilled labor, minimum wage rate

Squatter Life in Transition: an Evaluation of Participatory Housing Design

Rittirong Chutapruttikorn, Newcastle University

this article lays emphasis on Railway Squatter settlements who use recycled materials to build their dwelling. By long ten year struggle, they managed to secure temporary house registeration certificate for their houses. by this they gained the right to enrol their children in schools and electricity and water connection for their homes. apart from this, 24 communities secured land rental from the State Railway of Thailand (STR).

relation with CODI and Baanmankong- participatory process for land acquisation, building and occupation of homes.
merits: sense of ownership and social respect for the community
: integration of these people as formal residents of the locale

demerits: people lose their:- freedom of budgeting own’s resources, freedom of community self selection and freedom to shape their environment. this is because the process is limited by official control, regulation and lack of sensitivity of the officials.

NGOs, advocacy and popular protest: a case study of Thailand-by Preecha Dechalert

Abstract

• The paper examines why public protests have increasingly become part of the advocacy work of NGOs.
• Suggests where social and economic tensions have reached a crisis point, there is a phenomenon of ‘cultural drift’ in which values and norms are challenged and protest action by poor breaks out.

Introduction

• Dramatic changes in the role of NGOs occurred in the early 1990s.
• NGOs and people’s organizations (PO) started to stage protest against govt.
• ‘Protest’ is rather a word which implies the collaborative work against the govt.
• The alliance of the poor came to the known as ‘Assembly of the poor’ (AOP).

The Thai context

• Enormous economic changes in the 1990s- economic growth became centre of development.
• Great influx of foreign capital.
• There is increase in demand for resources.
• ‘Resource conflict’ pitting in the state and corporate sector.

Power and social control

• Important roots in patron-client relationship; but cultural norm reduces level of confrontation among people.
• Existence of ‘bureaucratic polity’ suggests the different administrative system.
• Huge gap between bureaucrats and normal people.
• Existence of many conflicts and protests.

 

 

Role of NGOs

• NGOs wanted every aspect of their work to be carried out in villages.
• They emphasized importance of building a ‘civil society’.
• Role is to support social justice, respond to ‘hot issues’support people’s organizations and local networks.

Examples of work of NGOs with communities

• The Project for Ecological Recovery (PAR)-  student NGOs raising environmental issues
• The Thai NGO Coalition on Aids (TNCA)
• The Thai Institute for Rural Development (THIRD)
• Assembly of the Poor (AOP)

 

Conclusion

• Focus on NGO advocacy work and protest as a part of social movement focusing on ‘resource mobilisation’.
• Advocacy as a 3d model, as a continued process.
• Networking- fundamental strategy of advocacy work as it argues significance of social, economic, political and cultural environment for advocacy.

 

Baan Mankong: going to scale with “slum” and squatter upgrading in Thailand-by Somsook Boonyabancha

Abstract

• National slum and squatter upgrading program by Thai govt. in 2003 , implemented through Community Organizations Development(CODI)
• Centers on infrastructure subsidies and housing loans to low income communities to- in situ upgrade or develop new houses.

 

Introduction

• Need to improve all slum and squatter settlements to meet MDGs.
• In Thailand, there have been partnerships between govt. agencies and CBOs for a while.
• In 1992, the Thai govt. set up the Urban Community Development Office to provide housing loans.
• In 2000 the Urban Community Development Office merged with Rural Development Fund to form the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI).
• Aim of CODI in implementing the Baan Mankong- improving housing, living and security of tenure for 300,000 households in 2,000 poor communities in 200 Thai cities within 5 years.

The Urban Community Development Office (UCDO)

• The UCDO was set up by the Thai govt. to address urban poverty.
• There was recognition of the need to develop more participatory models of support for low income groups through CBOs and credit groups.
• UCDO had a good capital base from which it provided loans to communities to undertake common needs. It tried to strengthen bonds between communities and the state.
• The difficulty in managing various savings groups among the community encouraged UCDO to establish networks among them.
• These network organizations later even linked together to negotiate problems with authorities on various levels.
• Since this decentralization was working very well, UCDO implemented many more activities to its loan activities in future.
• By 2000, UCDO integrated its work with CODI- this aided wider linkages, greater flexibilities and newer collaborations.

Baan Mankong(secure housing)

• This program was set up to reach the objective of reaching 1 million low income households in 5 years.
• Implemented by CODI,Baan Mankong- first to channel funds from govt. as subsidies and loans directly to poor communities.
• Second program- Baan Ua Arthorn (‘we care”) – national Housing Authority designs, constructs and sells ready-to-occupy flats.

 

 

 

 

Methodology

Fig 1 shows the first method employed.

 

 

 

How this process differs from conventional approaches.

• Urban poor community organizations and their networks are the key actors and they control funding and the management.
• It is “demand –driven by communities” rather than supply-driven as it supports communities who are ready to implement improvement projects and allows great variety of responses.
• The program does not specify physical outputs, but provide flexible finance to allow community organizations and local partnerships to plan, implement and manage directly.
• Stimulates deeper but less tangible changes in social structure, managerial systems and confidence among poor communities.
• It triggers acceptance of low-income communities as legitimate parts of the city and as partner’s in city’s larger developments.
• Secure tenure is negotiated, but locally.
• Focus is city-wide development with aim to reach all low-income communities.

 

Learning from pilot projects.

To explore new approaches, 10 pilot projects were supported initial. 6 of these pilots projects were:

a)      Land purchase and re-blocking

b)      Relocation to nearby land

c)       Scaling up pilot projects

d)      Land sharing

e)      The relocation of mini squatters and long term lease

 

Supporting decentralized actions within cities.

Six techniques to scale up Baan Mankong upgrading process:

• Pilot projects
• Learning centres
• Big events
• Exchanges
• Sub-contracting
• Constant meetings

 

FIG 2 shows the program mechanism



 

Lessons learnt:

• The importance of city wide programmes in which urban poor organizations are fully involved.
• The importance of horizontal linkages between peer groups in the city.
• The process of choosing the pilot projects in a city must belong to the urban poor groups and their networks.
• The importance of learning by seeing change being made by urban poor groups themselves in pilot projects.
• How not to manage the selection of pilot projects.
• From vertical links that divide urban poor communities to horizontal links that bind them
• It is not difficult to get urban poor communities to agree on pilot projects.
• “slums” are not an aberrations, but a normal part of existing city structures
• The physical form of the upgrading is not the issue or the problem
• Supporting city wide and nationwide upgrading will mean a lot of clumsiness at start of upgrading.
• How to manage the lack of experienced professionals to support this.
• The importance of doing things collectively
• Unleashing community creativity
• Reviving culture of poor communities
• Developing new kinds of upgrading

 

Urban ecology in Bangkok: Community participation, Urban Agriculture and Forestry -by Evan D. G. Fraser

Abstract

• Community based urban management project in Bangkok
• Two NGOs worked with two communities- to address local environmental issues
• NGO staff acted as bridge between community & local govt.
• Project developed a framework that was adopted and replicated by 50 other communities by Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
• Hence environmental & social goals were met by participation of community.

Introduction to context

• To cope with the pressures of high density of urban areas, resources are constantly extracted from remote areas causing an ecological imbalance in those areas.
• In countries like Thailand where immediate concerns like poverty and basic needs cannot be met, environmental issues take a back seat.
• Thailand falls in the tropic zone where environment is highly fragile. Hence urbanization and unplanned economic growth threatens ecology.
• In light of such issues, community based solutions were looked into.
• Project was led in partnership with Thailand Environmental Institute(TEI) and Canadian based International Centre for Sustainable Cities(ICSC) and funded by Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA)

The collaboration

Various reasons for TCI approaching ICSC:

• Thai govt. & Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) established urban greening as priority.
• Bangkok has 1sq.m. per capita of public green space which BMA wants to increase to 10sq.m per capita.
• While downtown is densely populated, 39% of the greater Bangkok is vacant, underdeveloped, low-lying and marshy or abandoned- caused due to rapid urbanization.
• Hence TEI saw great potential in developing better urban environment in these areas.

The tasks of the project were:

1. Teach members of community the benefits of urban space.
2. Form community working groups and guide them to plan, implement and maintain green spaces in their community.
3. Develop and test a method of community participation for larger benefits.

The challenge: To create a process that can be used and improved by future communities- by taking in opinions from even women, minorities/marginalized groups.

The major steps:

a)      Finding a site- where land was available n people would participate.

b)      Communities to form working groups to receive training.

c)       The planning phase- drawing maps, establishing goals, plan of new green space, work plan.

d)      Implementation- site preparation, planting, maintenance schedule.

Methodology

• Identify 2 communities- Keht Bankok Noi & Keht Bangkapi (Bangkok has 50 such Kehts)
• These communities had land, were interested and had support from local govt.
• Next step- workshop to bring ppl together.
• Planning process- mapping of potential green space, goal setting based on maps, implementation of plan.

Results of project

Assessed by following indicators:-

1. Establishing an urban Green Plan
2. Community Capacity Building
3. Poverty reduction
4. Link communities with government
5. Status of women
6. Develop a model for other communities to follow

Conclusion

The process emerged as method to promote community awareness, capacity building and empowerment.

Actors:

• Thailand Environmental Institute(TEI)
• Canadian based International Centre for Sustainable Cities(ICSC)
• Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA)
• Thai government
• Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA)
• Keht Bankok Noi & Keht Bangkapi – COMMUNITIES