What the Media Doesn’t See: Afghan and Syrian Labor in Turkey

This paper studies the characteristics of the workers in the informal economy and whether internal migrants treat this sector as a temporary location before moving on to the organised or formal sector to improve their lifetime income and living conditions. We limit our study to the Indian urban (non-agricultural) sector and study the characteristics of the household heads that belong to the informal sector (self-employed and informal wage workers) and the formal sector. We find that household heads that are less educated, come from poorer households, and/or are in lower social groups (castes and religions) are more likely to be in the informal sector. In addition, our results show strong evidence that the longer a rural migrant household head has been working in the urban areas, ceteris paribus, the more likely that individual has moved out of the informal wage sector. These results support the hypothesis that, for internal migrants, the informal wage labour market is a stepping stone to a secured life in the formal sector. 017; J15; J61; J42.

Turkey which is one of the border neighbours of Syria, is the most affected country by the refugee crises. However, until recently Syrian migrants residency has been regulated under non-permanent immigration status such as “guest migrant” or “temporary protected". Until Regulation on Work Permit of Refugees Under Temporary Protection issued in the Official Journal No. 2016/8375, legal working opportunities of refugees were not in question. In order to survive and to ensure their basic needs, they have entered into informal labour market. Most of the studies which are conducted both in the eastern region of Turkey and in biggest western cities have found that Syrian migrants are usually working in less favourable conditions than domestic labour , longer and more cheaply in many cases. As a result this migration flow engendered replacement of local workers by migrants and in some cases formalization of informal local labour.

Investigating the multi-layered mobility of Southeast Asian irregular farm workers in rural Taiwan, this article examines the formation of their mobility in a physical, geographical, occupational and socio-economic sense. Focusing on frequent movement in these four aspects, this article coins the term ‘fettered mobility’ for workers’ constant relocation in the villages’ informal farm labour market. In tandem with the focus of this Special Issue on the ongoing transformations of migration at the crossroad between the legal, social and economic obstacles dictated by nation states and the market, and new patterns of movement, this article shows how ‘fettered mobility’ is an unintentional result of the Taiwanese state’s mobility regime, which regulates foreign nationals’ mobility by categorizing a hierarchical legal status. Fettered mobility is facilitated by the translocal migrant community constituted by the co-ethnic link between migrant workers and migrant spouse farmers, and also by the inter-ethnic link between the migrant community on the one hand and Taiwanese farmers and unlicensed brokers on the other. When migration is reconfiguring at a global, regional and local scale, fettered mobility is an assemblage in which the state, market and individual amalgamate into a networked, mobile, irregular and precarious labour force in which unprotected migrant workers are vulnerable to the state’s power to repatriate. Repatriation is an omnipresent threat, and anyone who knows of a migrant worker’s fettered mobility can put an end to their migration. Presenting fettered mobility as an assemblage, this article enriches the ongoing debate on the relationship between mobility and immobility and underlines its conditionality and instability.

We began with the premise that South African recent migrants from rural to urban areas experience relatively lower rates of participation in formal labour markets compared to local residents in urban communities, and that these migrants are overrepresented in the informal labour market and in the unemployment sector. This means that rural to urban migrants are less likely than locals to be found in formal employment and more likely to be found in informal employment and among the unemployed. Using perspectives from Development Economics we explore the South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) panel datasets of 2008 and 2010, which only provide a perspective on what has happened between 2008 and 2010. We find that while migrants in general experience positive outcomes in informal labour markets, they also experience positive outcomes in formal markets, which is contrary to expectations. We also find that there are strong links between other indicators of performance in the labour market. Earned incomes are closely associated with migration decisions and educational qualifications (e.g. a matric certificate) for respondents between the ages of 30 and 60 years. The youth (15 to 30 years old) and senior respondents (over the age of 60) are the most disadvantaged in the labour market. The disadvantage is further reflected in lower earned incomes. This is the case even though the youth are most likely to migrate. We conclude that migration is motivated by both push (to seek employment) and pull (existing networks or marriage at destination) factors. For public policy, the emerging patterns – indicative and established – are important for informing strategies aimed at creating employment and developing skills for the unemployed, migrants and especially the youth. Similar policy strategies are embodied in the National Development Plan (NDP), the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS), etc.

In an extensive review of wage determination papers, it is concluded that the standard demographic and human capital factors explain little of earning differentials. Consequently, there is a growing interest among economists to include non-cognitive skills measured by personality traits in recent empirical literature to explain variations in earnings. In a bid to contribute empirical evidence to this strand of literature, this study examines the associations between the Big-Five personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, extraversion and neuroticism) and earnings, using the World Bank’s Skills towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) data on Ghana. The study employed regression techniques to estimate a series of semi-logarithmic wage equations that include demographic and human capital factors and the Big-Five personality traits to determine how important these factors are in explaining wage and self-employment earnings. Furthermore, the estimations of the wage equations are done separately for males and females to highlight any gender differences in the way personality traits contribute to earnings. Findings are largely consistent with the literature but uniquely demonstrate that in a power-distant culture like Ghana, where, traditionally, girl-child education has been relegated to the background, agreeable females, and not males, are rewarded in the formal wage employment labour market. However, in the informal self-employment labour market, conscientious males, and not females, are positively rewarded with higher earnings. These unique findings contribute to our understanding of the gender differences in the relative importance of non-cognitive skills in the formal and informal labour markets. JEL Codes: J31, J24

International factor mobility, informal interest rate and capital market imperfection: A general equilibrium analysis

This study examines how gender is negotiated within the informal labour market of street vending and how such participation contributes to the economic and social empowerment of Indigenous women street vendors in Guwahati City, Northeastern India. Methodology: The research adopts a qualitative case study design complemented by descriptive survey methods. Empirical data were collected through a structured survey of 60 Indigenous women street vendors and 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in Guwahati over an eight-month period in 2022. Open-ended research questions and an interview schedule were used to elicit detailed life histories, work trajectories, and experiences of negotiation in public space. The analysis focuses on the feminisation of informal work and the intersection of gender, indigeneity, and informality in the urban economy. Main Findings: The findings indicate that street vending constitutes a crucial source of income, financial autonomy, and socio-economic mobility for Indigenous women, enabling them to contribute to household decision-making and improve their social standing. At the same time, these women continue to face pervasive structural barriers, including insecure work conditions, limited access to basic amenities and social protection, harassment and discrimination in public spaces, and ambiguous or exclusionary regulatory frameworks. The study shows that women rely on informal social networks, collective strategies, and everyday negotiations with authorities and male actors in the market to sustain their livelihoods. Applications: The results provide evidence to inform gender-sensitive urban planning and labour policies that formally recognise street vendors as workers and integrate them into inclusive regulatory and social protection regimes. The study can guide local governments, NGOs, and community-based organisations in designing interventions that improve working conditions, enhance access to infrastructure and services, and strengthen Indigenous women’s bargaining power in informal markets. It also offers insights for scholars and policymakers concerned with gender, informality, and urban development in other developing-country contexts. Novelty/Originality: This study offers an empirically grounded analysis of Indigenous women street vendors in Northeastern India an under-researched region in the literature on gender and the informal economy. By foregrounding Indigenous women’s own narratives and negotiation strategies, the article advances understanding of how feminist and intersectional dynamics operate within informal labour markets and urban public spaces. It contributes original evidence on the dual processes of feminisation and marginalisation in informal work, while demonstrating how informal street vending can simultaneously reproduce vulnerability and serve as a pathway to economic and social empowerment. Keywords: women street vendors; Indigenous women; urban informal economy; women’s economic empowerment; gender and labour; Guwahati City; Northeast India.

Secondary school graduate output in Tanzania has enormously increased without a proper placement plan in the labour market. Specifically, the paper delineates the differences in informal labour market conditions and transferrable competences between urban and rural secondary school graduates; presents an examination of informal employments for secondary school graduates; and denotes the impact of transferrable competences and informal labour market conditions on secondary school graduates’ informal employment. A cross-sectional study design was employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive results showed trading, fishing, transportation, mechanics, food vending, palm oil processing and farming to be among main informal employments in which secondary school graduates are engaged. Mann-Whitney U test showed that there were significant differences in the effect of explanatory variables between urban and rural secondary school graduates. Binary Logistic Regression analysis showed that 8 variables namely, informal labour market accessibility, financial capital, social networks, labour market legal framework, self-efficacy, interpersonal relation, entrepreneurship, and farming competences had significant influence on informal employments of secondary school graduates. The results from focus group discussions and key informant interviews were consistent with the findings from the quantitative data. It is thus concluded that informal labour market conditions and transferable competences have an influence on informal employment of secondary school graduates. Therefore, adjustments of informal labour market conditions and transferable competences could be an effective tool of expanding informal employments for secondary school graduates in the informal labour market. The findings emphasise on the need for alerting Local Government Authorities, labour offices, employment agencies, and Non-Governmental Organisations to adjust and re-organize informal labour market conditions and improve transferable competences for secondary school graduates, and hence, improve chances for the graduates getting informal employment. Keywords: Informal labour market conditions, transferable competences, informal employment, secondary school graduates. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-2-05 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

In social, economic and political terms, Turkey is playing a key role in the Syrian refugee crisis. The number of refugees crossing its border is now in the millions, which makes Turkey conspicuous as both a destination and a transit country. The social adaptation process is an important component of the refugee crises given that Syrian migrants are not temporary but permanent. Since Turkey has the largest number of refugees compared to any other (western) country, it is important to understand how Syrian refugees are perceived by Turkish citizens. By taking the significant influence of media on the integration process into account, the main purpose of this article was to document how Syrian refugees are represented in the media. To achieve the aim, 1,054 news articles published in the summer of 2015 by Turkey’s three largest active news agencies were examined by conducting content analysis. We evaluated temporal milestones and spatial importance in Turkish pattern of reporting refugee-related news and compared the positions of the news agencies. Our findings highlight three issues. Based on the major three codes (refugee policy, illegal crossings, refugee as victim) it is obvious that Syrian refugees in Turkish media are represented as victims struggling to survive. While integration and migration policies are an important part of the solution for the Syrian migration crisis, these topics are the three most reported in the news. Last, but not least, the big chunk of news about humanitarian aid proves that Syrian refugees are evaluated by media in human terms.

Cameroon’s informal labour market largely harbours female workers, engaged mainly in low-productivity and low-paying jobs. We investigate the sticky floor and glass ceiling phenomena in the informal labour market as a whole and across its segments. We use the 2010 Cameroon labour market survey, employing the recentred influence function and blending the Oaxaca-Ransom and Neuman-Oaxaca decomposition methods. The resulting framework enables us to account for selectivity bias at the mean, resolve the index number problem of the standard decomposition, and examine earnings differentials across the unconditional earnings distribution. We find compelling evidence of a sticky floor phenomenon in the informal labour market manifested essentially among wage earners. Returns to experience mitigate the gender earnings gap at the mean, and 10th and 50th percentiles of the unconditional earnings distribution. Female workers have an unambiguous human-capital-based advantage over their male counterparts at the mean, lower tail, and median of the distribution.

The minimum wage in formal and informal sectors: Evidence from an inflation shock

The paper looks at the extent of gender and caste-based discrimination in the formal and informal labour markets in India using the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) Employment-Unemployment Survey (EUS) data for the four major rounds from 1999-00 to 2011-12. The study finds gender wage gaps to be significantly higher in the informal economy - a major part of which is attributable to discrimination effect. In sharp contrast, it is mainly the endowment effect which is responsible for the gender wage gaps in the formal economy. Caste-based wage gaps are found to be significantly lower in the informal economy and are attributable mainly to the endowment effect. Although caste-based wage gaps are positive in the formal economy, caste-based wage discrimination works the other way round in the formal economy with SC/ST workers getting a higher return to their endowments compared to the OBC/General workers. The quantile decomposition results for gender shows the presence of a sticky floor effect in both the formal and the informal economy whereas in case of caste-based discrimination, we find evidence of a glass ceiling effect in the informal economy and a U-shaped pattern in the formal economy.

Dramatic reductions in trade barriers during the past 10 years have caused unprecedented economic growth in India. Little is known about the impact of globalisation on the informal labour market, especially the impact on women. We interviewed women working in four occupations in Mumbai's informal labour market, gathering information about their daily lives, job responsibilities, and how the circumstances of their jobs have changed over the last 5 years. We construct a typical day in the lives of these women, discuss similarities and differences in the issues they face, and consider the policy implications of our results.

Turkey has been going through a difficult exam these days. Since the Syrian crisis started in 2011, she has welcomed the Syrian migrants with her 'open door' policy. Hosting more than two millions of Syrian migrants now, Turkey has been in a continuous effort to show her hospitality to her guests. In this sense, she provided the Syrian migrants in Turkey with the right to higher education at universities in Turkey without an entrance exam and a tuition fee. This policy enabled more than five thousand Syrian migrants to start higher education in Turkey. However, this issue has become a controversial one in Turkey. As getting into a university in Turkey is very competitive among the Turkish citizens, some find this policy unfair. On the other hand, some others support it thinking that this policy is a 'brotherly' one for their neighbors. Revealing the Turkish people's perceptions towards this policy can let us find out whether this 'governmental hospitable policy' is valid in the eye of general public. Within this context, this qualitative study aims to explore the perceptions of the Turkish people towards the Syrian migrants' right to higher education in Turkey. The data of the study were collected from the reviews made by the Turkish citizens for the news about the Syrian migrants' right to higher education in Turkey on online newspapers. These reviews were analyzed by conventional content analysis technique. The findings reveal that the reviewers are in favour of or against this policy for several reasons.

Negative economic phenomena such as the informal labor market and informal employment in the formal sector are becoming increasingly widespread and pose a major threat to the economy as a whole and to social security in the labor market. These phenomena have the following common features: illegal employment of an employee without entering into an employment contract, which is provided for by the current legislation of Ukraine, concealment of actual working hours and payment of wages "in an envelope", substitution of actual employment contracts with civil and commercial contracts, non-payment of taxes, social insecurity and a high probability of employees being unemployed. At the same time, in the event of an injury in the informal labor market, the injured worker must spend significant funds on treatment without any compensation payments. The author examines the priority areas of state policy aimed at eliminating the threats of the informal labor market and the main reasons for the spread of informal employment in Ukraine, taking into account the specifics of the current state of the economy, as well as the consequences of informal social and labor relations for both the employee and the state (a significant reduction in the volume of budget revenues, as well as the share of tax revenues). The purpose of this study is to create tools for assessing the status of formalization of labor relations in Ukraine with a view to properly organizing state supervision (control) measures to identify undeclared labor relations, and to ensure uniformity of approaches for labor inspectors to assess the risks of undeclared labor by entities. A phased expert evaluation of measures to reduce production risk at an industrial enterprise with the introduction of weighting coefficients according to certain criteria is proposed. A consistent model for managing the risks of using undeclared labor has been developed, based on a component method for assessing the risk of traumatic events and a mathematical model of management decisions. This model takes into account all available information on labor relations obtained from various sources of its accumulation in the executive authorities, stimulates preventive activities and allows to establish the dependence of the level of occupational risk on the validity of labor protection measures and reduce the influence of the subjective component of expert judgments