Re: Needs/topics we can contribute in?
okay then, so I will take a crack at one of my ideas and explain what I want to do there.
Regulation of Domestic workers-
Background:
There are many servants in Pakistan, and the hypothesis is that the vast majority of them do not get living wages, in addition, there are no standard working hours and vacation, paid holiday type rules.
This contributes to poverty, and these people in general do not have the ability to improve the lives of their next generation due to lack of funds.
The younger domestic workers do not have options to go to schools, in the evening if need be, and are thus being kept from a better future.
Issues:
While many servants get a good life as they d not have boarding and lodging expenses, there is a considerable number that work too many hours for too little pay. True for single home servants versus others like massis who work in a number of homes.
This contributes to poverty, and these people in general do not have the ability to improve the lives of their next generation due to lack of funds.
The younger domestic workers do not have options to go to schools, in the evening if need be, and are thus being kept from a better future.
Regulations are needed in place to protect the domestic workers, give fair wages for work, and allow for ability to invest in themselves and/or their children by regular or vocational/technical training.
What do we want to do and How
Estimate the impact of lack of regulation on this population segment
Quantitative- avg wages compared to poverty guidelines
Qualitative- other issues, living conditions,
Look at experiences of other countries and how they tackled similar issues. Outline key areas of improvement, and share those with recommendations on how to implement those.
Some specifics.
1) Estimate # of domestic workers in Pakistan
2) Do %age segmentation of domestic workers by single household workers versus workers providing their services to multiple houses
3) Estimate avg compensation for different segments- maybe some surveys, does not need to be a statistically valid sample, but as long as it is looking at diff cities and diff parts of a city, we can get a gut feel.
4) compare against poverty levels and cost of living
5) compare 3 & 4 with that of other countries
6) compile rules and regulations from other countries’ domestic workers’ laws and shortlist critical ones that need to be introduced in Pakistan now.
7) discuss possible implementation approaches, how, who, etc
I dont think this will be extremely complex, we can look at any existing research as a baseline or do some basis assessment to get an order of magnitude sort of impact analysis.
I believe that this can be done in a period of 3-4 months max.
I would rather have someone in Pakistan lead this, but I will be willing to lead this, if this is picked as.
Closing thoughts: while I think this subject is important, I do feel that other ideas suggested have more merit, especially those dealing with education. You may see that my own suggested topic #2 has a link here because that suggests offering training, this suggests allowing the opportunity to obtain that training.
