| Informality and Labor Market Segmentation is an issue of growing significance in the developing world. Most of the poor derive all of their income, or a great part of it, from informal work. Moreover, informal employment is often characterized by poor working conditions, poor pay and the absence of any labor standards for workers. Improving the economic position of informal workers is therefore a key instrument to raise living conditions of poor workers and reduce poverty. |
 |
Perry, Guillermo; Maloney, William; Arias, Omar; Fajnzylber, Pablo; Mason, Andrew; Saavedra-Chanduvi, Jaime. “Informality - Exit and Exclusion”. World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Informality in employment can lead to a less than optimal social balance in which many workers are unprotected against health- and employment-related shocks and poverty in old age. In Latin America and the Caribbean alone, 56 percent of jobs in urban areas are informal, a trend which has caused concern in recent years. This can be explained in part by marked rises in real minimum wages in some countries as well as by inadequate macroeconomic policies, according to the World Bank report.
|
 |
Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb; Kanbur, Ravi; and Ostrom, Elinor (Edited by); 2006. "Linking the Formal and Informal Economy Concepts and Policies." Oxford University Press.
The concepts of formal and informal remain central to the theory and practice of development more than half a century after they were introduced into the debate. They help structure the way that statistical services collect data on the economies of developing countries, the development of theoretical and empirical analysis, and, most important, the formulation and implementation of policy.
|
Back to Employment and Shared Growth
|
RSS