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Abstract

The Covid-19 health crisis and the resulting economic recession has hit the informal economy hard in Perú. Local and migrant Venezuelan women street vendors are a particularly vulnerable group within the informal sector and this exploratory study investigates their precarity, the challenges they face, and their lived experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic in the capital, Lima. The aim of the research was threefold: compare the precarity of the two nationalities, retrospectively identify differences prior to the pandemic, and make visible the pandemics impact on the vendors. This focus attempts to help fill a gap in the research, using feminist and Marxist feminist theories, on migrant and local women vendors in Perú. A mixed-method approach was used with 23 vendors responding to quantitative questionnaires and 6 participating in qualitative interviews in the months of June and July 2021. The data collection was designed to gather information on personal information, work, care roles, and Covid-19.
The findings revealed that the pandemic had had a significant impact. Wages were lower, people had lost jobs, and they struggled with daily expenses. The study showed that there are two groups of vendors in Lima; short-term, who were a combination of Peruvian and Venezuelans that had started vending due to the pandemic, and long-term who were only Peruvians. Strict authorities were a problem for many vendors and vendors´ negative experiences came out in the qualitative interviews as well as the mental strain that they had to live with. Furthermore, some of the women worked with their children and also supported their parents economically. This small study shows that street vendors have suffered multiple challenges in the pandemic and paves the way for further research on their lives.

Course: International Development Studies (DL) - MSC - P2517PTD

Date Deposited: 2022-07-25

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13932.html