A Comparison of Australian and Indian Women Garment and Footwear Homeworkers
The chapter compares situationally different types of homework in the garment and footwear sectors in Australia and India. The two categories of informal homework exist in a highly gender segmented workforce that experiences regulation distance. The conceptual tool of invisibilization is used to analyze the work of homeworkers in national and global supply chains and identify the processes that contribute to homeworkers work being represented as non-work and as non-workers. Even though the Indian and Australian homeworkers differ with respect to regulation and recognition in the supply chain, both experience varying degrees of invisibilization. Invisibilization and homework connect the socio-political influences that accentuate gender inequalities through the devaluation of work, lack of collectivity, lack of social and legal protections and lack of capacity to access any protections