This project strives to make visible home-based work, supporting, documenting and disseminating the livelihood-enhancing urban practices of home-based workers whose homes serve as their workplaces. This work has its focus in urban settings where city, settlement and housing regulations and design seldom accommodate home-as-workplace spaces.
Home-based workers are often located in informal settlements. The housing units tend to be small and crowded with little natural light and ventilation, limited or no access to water and sanitation, and little or no security of tenure. The poor quality of habitat has a direct bearing on the productivity of home-based workers, as well as the health and well-being of the workers and their households.
WIEGO has mapped home-based work in Delhi, and what this means for planning and policy in the city. We aim to find, support and document livelihood-enhancing urban regulations, housing and settlement design, and city planning. This is with a view to support organizations of home-based workers in advocacy and interventions, as well as architects, urban designers and planners committed to inclusive practices. We work closely with the Mahila Housing Trust, which works to improve the quality of habitats in poor informal settlements in Indian cities.
Project Activities
Understanding the geography of informal work in cities: Linking homes and sites of work through mapping
Understanding the geography or spatiality of home-based work is critical for policy advocacy. Supported by the Social Design Collaborative, WIEGO has explored this in Delhi. We mapped clusters of home-based work across the city indicating the settlement typologies, density of built form, and where the nearest suppliers and buyers are located. Working with the Delhi Roundtable on Solid Waste Management, we also mapped waste picker settlements across the city. We have documented developments in Savda Ghevra, a resettlement colony, and outlined the livelihood challenges workers face when they are evicted and shifted to the urban periphery. Across this work, we spotlight the particular challenges women workers face.
Related Articles and Resources
Documenting lessons from Mahila Housing Trust
WIEGO commissioned City Collab to document lessons from Mahila Housing Trust’s interlinked strategies that make home-based environments safer, healthier and more productive. These are:
- Improving the physical environment.
- Promoting energy efficiency and climate resilience.
- Incorporating the needs of the home-based workers in city plans and policies.
A 3-pronged strategy for improving home-based work environments
Improving Physical Environment
Promoting Energy Efficiency and Climate Resilience
Incorporating Needs of Home-Based Workers in City Plans and Policies
Case Studies
Reviewing urban planning and design approaches
A critical pathway to inclusionary approaches is changing urban practice. Team member Shalini Sinha co-edited a Special Issue of Built Environment,‘Homes that Work’. This distils priorities for cities organized around homes as sites of work. WIEGO also commissioned Indian Institute of Human Settlements to complete a literature and design review examining the work-home boundary across scales of unit, neighbourhood and settlement. Part A delves into the way the work-home boundary is shaped, and Part B presents aspatial analysis of work-homes across industries, types and scales, shedding light on the implications of planning on work-homes, architectural design of housing, access to infrastructure, tenure-security, risk and vulnerability.
