Informal Employment

Jackson, Emerson Abraham (2019): Informal Employment. Published in: Decent Work and Economic Growth - Encyclopedia of UN Sustainable Development Goals, Springer Nature Publisher, Cham. (2 January 2020)

Abstract

The myth surrounding negative connotation of informal employment / informal economy work engagement is one that needs to be revisited as research ventures must be pursued in the direction of encouraging those engaged in it to feel quite elated about their boldness in becoming actively involved in economic development activities. Equally, sensitive approaches should be pursued in pursuance of government statutory obligations in addressing core services like expenditures connected with education and health for example, which can only be achieved through revenue raised from genuine contributions made by the workforce, be it through formal or informal work engagement.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Informal Employmentn
• Language: English
• Keywords: Informal Economy, Underground Economy, Shadow Economy
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E23 - Production; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E24 - Employment ; Unemployment ; Wages ; Intergenerational Income Distribution ; Aggregate Human Capital ; Aggregate Labor Productivity; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E26 - Informal Economy ; Underground Economy

References

Ahmed, S., Ahmed, W., Pasha, F, Khan, S., and Rehman, M. (2012). Pakistan Economy DSGE Model with Informality. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Working Paper Series, No. 47.

Aryeetey, E. (1996). The Potential for Expanded Economic Activity in the Informal Sector. Accra: Institute of Economic Affairs.

Blair, J.P. and Endres, C.R. (1994). ‘Hidden economic development assets’, Economic Development Quarterly 8, 3:286–91.

Bryceson, D, (2006). African urban economies: searching for sources of sustainability. In Bryceson, D & Potts, D (Eds), African urban economies: viability, vitality or vitiation of major cities in East and Southern Africa? Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cardenas, D. (2014). The Informal Economy and the constraints that it imposes on pension contributions in Latin America. Review of Business and Economics, Vol 2(4): pp. 18 – 50.

Cook, D. (1989). Rich Law, Poor Law: Different Responses to Tax and Supplementary Benefit Fraud, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Ferman, Louis A., Stuart Henry, and Michele Hoyman (eds.). (1987). Preface to Special Issue on "The Informal Economy." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences Vol. 493: pp. 10-14.

Fernandez-Kelly, M.P. and Garcia, A.M. (1989). ‘Informalisation at the core: Hispanic women, homework, and the advanced capitalist state’, Environment and Planning D 8:459–83.

Fluitman, F. (2001). ‘Working, But Not Well: Notes on the Nature and Extent of Employment Problems in sub-Saharan Africa’, Occasional Paper, Turin: International Training Centre of the ILO.

Fortin, B., Garneau, G., Lacroix, G., Lemieux, T. and Montmarquette, C. (1996). L’Economie souterraine au Quebec: mythes et réalités, Laval: Presses de l’Universite Laval.

Godfrey, P.C. (2011). Toward a Theory of the Informal Economy. The Academy of Management Annals, 5:1, 231-277. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2011.585818.

Gutmann, P.M. (1977). ‘The subterranean economy’, Financial Analysts Journal 34,11:26–7.

Gutmann, P.C. (1978). ‘Are the unemployed, unemployed?’, Financial Analysts Journal 34,1: 26–9.

Hansen, KT & Vaa, M (Eds). (2004). sreconsidering informality: perspectives from urban Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.

Hart, S.L. (2007). Capitalism at the crossroads: The unlimited business opportunities in solving the world’s most difficult problems (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School.

Hussmans, R. (2004). Measuring the Informal economy: From employment in the Informal sector to Informal Employment. Working Paper No. 53. Policy Integration Department, Bureau of Statistics, International Labour Office, Geneva.

International Labour Office [ILO], (2000): Resolution concerning statistics of employment in the informal sector, adopted by the Fifteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians (January 1993); in: Current International Recommendations on Labour Statistics, 2000 Edition; International Labour Office, Geneva, 2000.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE [ILO]. (2002a) Women and men in the informal economy: a statistical picture. Geneva: ILO.

ILO (2002) Decent Work and the Informal Economy. Geneva: ILO.

Isachsen, A.J., Klovland, J.T. and Strom, S. (1982). ‘The hidden economy in Norway’, in V.Tanzi (ed.) The Underground Economy in the United States and Abroad, Lexington, MA: D.C.Heath.

ITUC-Africa. (n/d). Paving the way for formalisation of the Informal Economy: Experiences and Perspectives from ITUC-Africa and Trade Unions Accross Africa [Online]. Available at: http://www.ulandssekretariatet.dk/sites/default/files/uploads/public/languages/pavingtheway_loftf_english_version.pdf. Accessed: 15th May, 2019.

Jackson, E.A. and Jabbie, M.N. (2019). Understanding Market Failure in the Developing Country Context (Online First). In Leal, L.F., Azul, A., Brandi, L., Ozuyar, P. and Wall, T. (eds.), Decent Work and Economic Development. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Springer Publisher, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71058-7_44-1.

Jackson, E.A. (2018). Book Review of Introduction to Dynamic Macroeconomic General Equilibrium Models. (2nd Eds.) Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2015, 282pp. ISBN: 978-1-62273-030-8 (Hardcover) written by Josh L. Torres. Journal of Applied Thought, Vol. 6(1): pp. 284 – 289.

Jackson, E.A. (2016). Phronesis and Resource Curse Hypothesis in Post-Independent Sierra Leone. Ilorin Journal of Economic Policy, Vol. 3(1): 1-10.

Lemieux, T., Fortin, B. and Frechette, P. (1994). ‘The effect of taxes on labor supply in the underground economy’, American Economic Review, Vol. 84(1): pp. 231–54.

Leonard, M. (1994). Informal Economic Activity in Belfast, Aldershot: Avebury.

Lin, J. (1995). ‘Polarized development and urban change in New York’s Chinatown’, Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 30(3): pp.332–54.

Loayza, N.A. (1997). The Economics of the Informal Sector: A Simple Model and some Empirical Evidence from Latin America. The World Bank Policy Research Department Macroeconomics and Growth Division, Policy Research Working Paper No. WPS1727.

Martin, C.J. (1996). ‘Economic strategies and moral principles in the survival of poor households in Mexico’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 15(2): pp. 193– 210.

Miraftab, F. (1996). ‘Space, gender and work: home-based workers in Mexico’, in E.Boris and E.Prugl (eds) Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible no More, London: Routledge. Mirus, R. and Smith.

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). (1994). Jobs Study: Part 2, Paris: OECD. Pahl, R.E. (1984). Divisions of Labour, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Paul, K., & Barbato, R. (1985). The multinational corporation in the less developed country: The economic development model versus the North–South model. Academy of Management Review, 10(1), 8–14.

Potts, D. (2008). The urban informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa: from bad to good (and back again?), Development Southern Africa, 25:2, 151-167, https://doi.org/10.1080/03768350802090527.

Rai, SM, Brown, B & Ruwanpura, K. (2019). 'SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth – A gendered analysis' World Development, vol. 113, no. (2019), pp. 368-380. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.09.006.

Robinson, C. (1988). Introduction: Exploring the Informal Economy. Social Justice, Vol. 15. (No. 3-4): pp. 3 – 16.

Rowlingson, K., Whyley, C., Newburn, T. and Berthoud, R. (1997). Social Security Fraud, DSS Research Report no. 64, London: HMSO.

Sassen, S. (1989). ‘New York city’s informal economy’, in A.Portes, M.Castells and L.Benton (eds) The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ulandssekretariatet, (2014). Sierra Leone Labour Market Profile 2014. Danish Trade Union Council for International Development Cooperation (Online). Available at: http://www.ulandssekretariatet.dk/sites/default/files/uploads/public/PDF/LMP/lmp_sierra_leone_2014_final_version_revised.pdf. Accessed: 15th May, 2019.

UNDP. (n/d). Sustainable Development GOALS. Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/brochure/SDGs_Booklet_Web_En.pdf. Accessed: 13th May, 2019.

Venkatesh, S.A. (2006). Off the books: The underground economy of the urban poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Warde, A. (1990). ‘Household work strategies and forms of labour: conceptual and empirical issues’, Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 4(4): pp. 495–515.

Wenig, A. (1990). ‘The shadow economy in the Federal Republic of Germany’, in European Commission, Underground Economy and Irregular Forms of Employment, Final Synthesis Report, Brussels: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Williams, C.C and Windebank, J. (2004). Informal Employment in the Advanced Economies – Implications for Work and Welfare. London and New York: Taylor and Francis Publisher (Routledge).

Wilson, S.A. (2013). Diamond exploitation in Sierra Leone 1930 - 2010: A resource curse? GeoJournal, 78, 997 – 1012.

Yadama, G. (1996). Urban Informal Employment and Self-Employment in Developing Economies: Theory and Evidence. Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 44(2): pp. 289 – 314.

Yaw A.D. (2007). Promoting the informal sector as a source of gainful employment in developing countries: insights from Ghana, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18:6, 1063-1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585190701321716.