Formally Informal? Sex Work, Stigma and Institutions

• In Event: Economic Rights and Labor Rights

Abstract

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has long stressed the importance of bringing informal workers into the formal economy as a means of providing workers with increased labor rights, protections and access to services. Specifically, for those informal workers in vulnerable and/or stigmatized positions, formalization is often framed as a positive reform. But when we look below the rules to those workers impacted, what does the formalization of work look like in practice? Examining the legalization of sex work in New South Wales (Australia) and Nevada (United States) as cases of formalization of vulnerable and/or stigmatized work, this paper analyzes the implications of such for sex workers’ rights.

Drawing on data from thirty-six original semi-structured interviews with sex workers, sex workers’ rights organizations and public official, the aim of the paper is two-fold. The first is to analyze the relationship between the different types of legal regimes in New South Wales and Nevada, and the relative in/accessibility of rights and protections. While these contexts provide the opportunity for sex workers to work legally, they are still often excluded from accessing social programs and services like healthcare, banking, housing, childcare, and legal representation due to the stigma associated with sex work. The second aim is to analyze how sex workers organize to navigate these constrained environments to fulfill their social and economic rights by creating their own institutions for protection and access. Ultimately, the paper develops an agent-based theory of institutional creation focused on actors occupying liminal spaces between informal and formal sectors.

Author

• Erica E MacDonald, University of Connecticut