A women’s rights activist believes that the home-based job market has not been successful “as there is poor coordination between the administration and the public.”
The government should play the role of a facilitator and if need be, issue the required permits, provide appropriate insurance coverage and pass specific laws on working from home, Parvin Hedayati told ISNA.
Noting that empowering women can come through home-based industry, she stressed that “human resources should be driven into the labor market.”
One of the solutions to boost economic activities is to develop home-based jobs. Economic activities, whether in labor or capital, need “a comprehensive order” through networking or clustering. Clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense or another) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters).
Cluster jobs are inter-related tasks that start from supplying raw material and go up to the distribution network. Several years ago, a list of home-based jobs and the concept of clustering were introduced to the ministry of labor and “over 150 subsidiary jobs were indentified linked to a variety of home jobs,” she said, adding that unfortunately such jobs are considered “professional and service-oriented, and not part of the production sector.”
Empowerment
The activist believes that a part of the domestic goods industry can be home-based, and “we can bring industry to homes.” She cited women’s potential in the electronic sector as an example. Other examples of home industries are weaving, traditional handmade apparel, fabric printing, leather work, needlework and many more.
The government should provide the necessary coordination in industry and facilitate training to ensure the required mechanism to bring industry to homes. “We should empower women for their progress.”
Hedayati said the ministry of labor can be the link for home-based jobs development. Local aptitudes and potential should be harnessed and people organized in cooperative ventures. “This will result in a productive home-based job network.”c
