The Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future

Front Cover
Martha Chen, Françoise Carré
Routledge, Jul 14, 2020 - Business & Economics - 326 pages

This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised.

Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour.

The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

 

Contents

List of illustrations
Introduction
the bane of the labouring poor under globalised capitalism
past present and future
an overview highlighting
The measurement of informal employment in Mexico
key methods variables
disaggregated frameworks matter
imaginations beyond architecture
Regulating corporations in global value chains to realise labour rights
Street vendors and planning paradigms
dispossession and displacement
The political work of waste picker integration
rethinking the terms of inclusion
perspectives from Latin
Deciphering African informal economies

Old and new forms of informal employment
Reconceptualising poverty and informal employment
Revising labour law for work
challenges
Bibliography
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2020)

Martha Chen is a Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, USA, and Co-Founder, Emeritus International Coordinator and Senior Advisor of WIEGO.

Françoise Carré is Research Director, Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston, McCormack Graduate School, Boston, USA, and Director, WIEGO Statistics Programme.

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