Informal Jobs Research Articles

Reconceptualizing the youth and waithood notions: African youth agency and rural livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining

This paper seeks to revisit the notion that Africa's youth are caught up in waithood by providing empirical data and critical analysis of the perspectives of youth engaged in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews from multiple episodes of research in Ghana, we offer seven (7) key findings to argue that the situation of African youth is far more complex and nuanced than the simple portrayal that they are stuck in waithood – i.e. unable to enter the formal labor market to attain respectful adulthood. Thus, our findings offer three (3) perspectives which reflect better the reality of the African youth, enabling us to reconceptualize waithood experiences: Time-bound waithood or waithood temporality, Survival-hood, and Ensnared waithood. The time-bound waithood or waithood temporality reflects a situation where the youth choose to participate in informal sector activities like ASM as a temporal livelihood strategy or as a transition process while negotiating access to well-paid jobs in the formal sector that offer job security. The survival-hood is where youth assert their individual and collective agency to participate in informal sector jobs (in this case, ASM operations) as a survival mechanism, reflecting different livelihood possibilities and complementarities. The ensnared waithood reflects the situation where some youths are caught up in a web of their socialization process or enculturation which implants in their minds that good jobs are those of formal sector or salaried employment which are primarily based in the urban economy. From these perspectives, we argue that waithood is both a process (i.e. transitional) and an end in itself depending on the situation in which the youth perceive formal labor jobs and the willingness to utilize their agency to create their own work or secure informal sector jobs amidst structural constraints or neoliberal policies inhibiting employment for young people in the formal labor market. Based on our findings, we develop a Youth agency outcome framework(YAOF) which highlights how structural constraints (such as government policies, neoliberal policies, social norms and regulations within an economic sector) serve as an impediment to formal sector employment for tertiary graduates (educated youths). The framework further highlights how structural constraints trigger the utilization of capital assets in determining and influencing youth agency in the exploration and subsequent participation in informal sector jobs like ASM and the associated outcomes – such as financial independence, sustainable income, economic support for family members, marriage, and household formation – for the youths involved in the economic activity. Our findings provide critical implications for youth employment policies, interventions, and programs in Africa.

Being a migrant woman during disasters: A phenomenological study to unveil experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Milan, Italy

Migrants and women were among the groups most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic disaster. By adopting an intersectional lens, it can be inferred that migrant women (MW) were particularly vulnerable to its impacts. This study aims to explore the multifaceted impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on MW living in Milan, Italy, investigating a broad spectrum of experiences. We conducted a phenomenological study using semi-structured interviews from September 2023 to January 2024. Interviews were transcribed and inductively analyzed. We interviewed 19 cisgender MW women coming from 10 different countries, with a median age of 43 years. At the pandemic’s onset, 12 were undocumented migrants, four were documented, while three had obtained Italian citizenship. Most held informal job positions, primarily as domestic workers, and were impacted by the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. Both before and during the pandemic, non-governmental organizations were the preferred entry point to the healthcare systems. Their psychological well-being was compromised by distance from family members and the extensive COVID-19 media coverage. Despite skepticism, most MW adhered to the vaccination campaign due to its de-facto mandatory nature. Social isolation was not considered a major impact. Overall, MW did not perceive themselves as a particularly vulnerable group. Systemic interventions to address inequalities faced by MW should be incorporated throughout the entire disaster risk management cycle, and an intersectional approach should be integrated into all stages of public policy development. As distrust emerged as a particularly significant issue building trust before disasters is crucial for an effective response.

Business cycles, real wages, and the quality of jobs

ABSTRACT The primary goal of this study is to shed light on the ongoing debate regarding a supposed extra wage sensitivity for newly hired workers compared to those who remain employed. Recent contributions claim that this apparent greater wage sensitivity may be driven by the correlation between the business cycle and likelihood of workers transitioning to ‘better’ job opportunities, typically associated with higher salaries. Our findings based on Brazilian data align with this claim. In other words, during periods of economic expansion, the availability of ‘better’ job positions increases, leading to a higher influx of newly hired individuals who experience wage increases because of transitioning away from ‘worse’ job positions into better jobs. To assess this, we used two metrics for ranking jobs: The first was based on grouping occupations according to hierarchy levels, with managers and directors occupying the top tier. The other considered formal jobs as better than informal jobs. Importantly, our findings remain robust regardless of how the jobs are ranked.

Perlindungan Hukum terhadap Pekerja Usia Anak di Indonesia

The existence of child exploitation and child labor will add to labor problems in Indonesia. The term "child labor" refers to people who employ children. The term "child labor" can be associated with the use of children's labor with low compensation or considerations regarding their personality development, safety, health, and future prospects. Most child workers do not have time to play or go to school like other children. Underage people work as hard as adults, both in formal and informal jobs. To save child labor in the future, a holistic and comprehensive solution model is needed. One method that can be used is a client-centered case management approach (centered on the client or child worker).

Job advertisements and lived experiences of victims of job scams in Ibadan, Nigeria

PurposeAn increase in informal job advertisements has been attributed to high unemployment. However, less scholarly attention has been placed on the experiences of victims of advertised job scams.Design/methodology/approachThis explorative study investigates the lived experiences of victims of advertised job scams in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, adopting Durkheim’s Functionalism and Anomie Theory. Around 35 victims were purposively engaged in in-depth and telephone interviews.FindingsThe findings of the study indicated the link between functionalism and anomie, an increasing rate of advertised job scams and a high rate of unemployment and poverty as well as the desperation of victims in getting jobs. The value orientation of an individual is determined by the dynamics of the social institutions. The pattern of job scammers revealed extremists conditioned by the large number of youths seeking employment. The advertised scam jobs are usually unavailable. In addition, employers, through informal job advertisements, subject victims to extortions, exploitation, street begging, kidnapping and rituals as well as sexual harassment and rape. Owing to the high rate of unemployment, many genuine job offers are characterised by bribes, besides trivializing merit.Originality/valueThe government should design measures to tackle the rate of corruption and unemployment. This can be achieved by introducing entrepreneurship and skill acquisition programmes in the nation’s education system.

Economic constraints and gendered rules: Understanding women’s perspectives of how government-imposed restrictions impact women’s mental health and social wellbeing across Afghanistan

This paper examines how the mental health and participation in work-related and social activities of women in Afghanistan has been impacted by the socio-political changes that have been enforced since August 2021. The study hypothesizes that women across Afghanistan from diverse sectors, both formal and informal, are negatively affected by the imposed restrictions, and that it impacts their participation in the workforce, their mental health, and their overall living conditions. The analysis within this paper is based on 124 Key Informative Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), which included 33 men and 154 women across six geographic regions of Afghanistan. The findings suggest that within formal and informal job sectors, women have felt a significant disconnect from the market and the community in which they were once thriving, and as a result have experienced worsened living conditions and diminished social status. The paper discusses the significance of women’s participation in the workforce and the positive and meaningful impact women can bring to their communities; highlighting women’s frustration and documenting firsthand accounts of women’s experiences in this new socio-political landscape. It also highlights the new initiatives women are undertaking to continue their work and engage in social activities.

Exploring employment (de-)routinisation, premature deindustrialisation, and informal labour interactions: Evidence from Morocco

AbstractThis paper explores the (de-)routinisation of employment structure in developing countries, through the case of Morocco. We investigate employment (de-)routinisation from an often-overlooked perspective, aiming to elucidate the interplay between the dynamics of occupational employment composition by the level of routine tasks intensity and two structural aspects: premature deindustrialisation and the prevalence of informal labour.Our findings, based on tertile analysis and regressions, do not fully support the hypothesis of employment structure de-routinisation. At the same time, we could not identify a clear process of routinisation similar to that observed in developing countries undergoing the first stage of the traditional structural transformation process. Rather, we identified an inverted U-shaped pattern in the dynamics of occupational employment, indicative of a rise in intermediate routine-intensive occupations.We emphasise two key factors, with opposite effects that have contributed to this atypical pattern: The first aspect is premature deindustrialisation, which according to our shift-share decomposition, has adversely affected highly routine-intensive jobs, contrasting with the routinisation trend observed in countries that have experienced a more traditional process of structural transformation. The influence of premature deindustrialisation in terms of de-routinisation is somewhat mitigated by the increasing prevalence of occupations demanding intermediate routine tasks, particularly within the services and construction sector. Regarding the second structural aspect – the prevalence of informal labour – our three-way interaction model indicates a lower susceptibility of informal jobs to de-routinisation compared to their formal counterparts within the same industry. Consequently, the prevalence of informal employment has slowed down the process of de-routinisation of employment structure.

The Impact of the Street-Stall Economy on the Quality of Employment in the Informal Economy

As a form of informal economy, the street-stall economy has a positive role in providing employment opportunities, but at the same time, there are problems such as low quality of employment and insufficient social security. Therefore, the question explored in this paper is whether the quality of informal economy employment generated by the ground stall economy is an effective job and whether it can be a way for low-income groups to earn a living. In this paper, the composition and proportion of the intangible costs of the stall economy and the average monthly income of the urban low-income group are analyzed to determine whether the informal jobs created by the stall economy can meet the basic needs of the urban low-income group. Taking the average per capital income of the low-income group as the standard, if the stall economy can steadily bring more than the standard net income to the low-income group, it means that the informal jobs created by the stall economy are effective jobs. The study shows that nearly 30% of the vendors in the statistics of the monthly net income of the street-stall economy are unable to reach the average income of the low-income group in the city, indicating that the informal economy jobs created by the street-stall economy are of low quality and are not enough to satisfy the basic living needs of the lowest-income group and that the proportion of effective jobs is low.

Catch me if you can: informal tourism employment of locals in scenic-oriented rural communities

ABSTRACT The expansion of the tourism industry has generated a plethora of informal job opportunities. However, existing literature has not thoroughly explored the extensive involvement of local residents in rural areas in informal tourism employment. This study focuses on the Fujian Tulou villages in China and employs the fieldwork method to investigate the phenomenon of informal tourism employment among local residents in scenic-oriented rural communities. The findings indicate that the dearth of employment prospects in rural areas, coupled with China’s distinctive rural land ownership system and the support from the rural social network, are the primary drivers motivating locals to participate in informal tourism employment. Locals employ tactics such as camouflage, tacit collusion, lurking, and covert actions to engage in informal tourism employment while navigating the regulations imposed by scenic area management. In efforts to standardize management within scenic areas, both local governments and tourism management companies are implementing measures such as offering formal employment opportunities and profit-sharing arrangements to incentivize the regularization of local employment in the tourism sector.

Broken Ladders? Labour Market Inequality in Indonesia and India

This paper examines labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach that draws on a job ladder framework. In the framework, I differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal employment and between formal, upper-tier informal and lower-tier informal employment. I find that Indonesia and India both have job ladders that are narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, with the share of workers in lower-tier informal jobs significantly exceeding the share of workers in upper informal and formal employment. However, more people are in formal wage-employment in Indonesia than in India. Unlike in Indonesia, where the share of wage-employment in total employment increased from 2001 to 2020, the corresponding share in India was relatively constant from 1988 to 2022. Sharp disparities are evident in the earnings of workers in different tiers of the labour market in Indonesia and India, and evidence of convergence in earnings is limited between lower-tier informal workers and formal workers, at least in Indonesia. I also find that females and less-educated workers occupy the lower tiers of the labour markets in the two countries.

Factors That Influence the High Number of Elderly People Working in the Informal Sector.

As individuals age, they are expected to experience a natural progression that usually involves a slight and permanent decrease in bodily functions and physical abilities. Despite this, many older people remain active in the workforce. This study seeks to explore the correlation between the health conditions, disabilities, social factors, and demographic circumstances of elderly individuals engaged in both formal and informal employment sectors. This study utilizes an observational analytical method with a cross-sectional structure. The participants in the research involved all individuals aged 60 years and above who met the outlined criteria, totaling 15,034,946 respondents. The data analysis was conducted using multivariate logistic regression in Model II. Overall, most older adults are working in informal jobs. Moreover, most respondents are 60-69 years old, married, have a primary school certificate, own health insurance and a house, and live with family. In addition, the multivariate analysis shows the relationship between each variable and the informal sector working elderly. It is known that older women have a 1.45 times higher limited educational background, not having savings is 1.21 times, rural areas living 1.93 times, not being the head of the family is linked 1.34 times, poor health conditions are 1.01 times, and having a disability has a 1.20 times higher likelihood of informal-sector employment. Several variables are assigned as the determinants that increase the number of elderly working in informal sectors, including gender, education level, savings ownership, living areas, head of the family role, health status, and disability.

Wage Bargaining Power of Internal Migrant Workers: Evidence from Urban Labor Market in China

This study analyses the wage bargaining power of employers and internal migrant workers in the urban labor market in China using a two-tiered SFA model. The findings indicate that bargaining power decreases the observed wage relative to the benchmark wage which is associated with worker’s actual productivity. The availability of migrant labor is identified to be a key variable in the wage bargaining process. This study reveals that the migrant workers who obtain jobs via informal job search methods stand in a weak bargaining position relative to those using formal search methods which is consistent with limited choices hypothesis. Additionally, the migrant workers in the manufacturing and construction industries or producing and processing occupations extract surplus nearly identical to other groups.

HUBUNGAN USIA, MASA KERJA, WAKTU KERJA, SIKAP KERJA DAN AKTIVITAS PEKERJAAN DENGAN KEJADIAN NYERI PUNGGUNG BAWAH PADA PETANI PADI DESA SEMEN

Indonesia is an agrarian country so that agriculture is one of the sectors with the largest number of workers. Agriculture is an informal sector job that still uses a lot of manual handling methods so that it has the potential to cause complaints of low back pain. Low back pain is a health problem in the form of acute pain that is felt in the lower back (lumbosacral) area in the form of local or radicular pain. Risk factors for low back pain include individual factors, occupational factors and environmental factors. This research is a quantitative-research with analytic observational method and cross-sectional approach. The population is farmers from of Semen village and registered on rukun tani group. The sample is 30 people using total sampling. Independent variables is age, working period, working time, work attitudes and work activities with dependent variable Low Back Pain. Data collection techniques used individual characteristic questionnaires, nordic body map, VAS scale and OWAS method. Data analysis technique uses Fisher’s Exact Test statistical test. The results showed a greater distribution of independent variables age > 35 years, work experience > 5 years, work attitudes requiring improvement, and heavy work activities. The results of the bivariate analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between age (p-value = 0.035), working period (p-value = 0.002) and working time (p-value = 0.004) with complaints of low back pain in rice farmers in hamlet X Semen Village as evidenced by p-value <0.05. Keywords: Low Back Pain, Rice Farmes, VAS scale, OWAS method.

Gender norms and the child penalty in China

We utilize a comprehensive individual panel dataset from China and employ an event study approach to investigate the influence of childbirth on gender disparities across various labor market outcomes, emphasizing the role of gender norms in shaping the child penalty. Our findings show a pronounced decline in individual earnings, labor force participation and working hours for women after childbirth, though labor force participation returns to pre-childbirth level in the long term. Such trends are not observed among men. These gender differentiated outcomes are driven by a key factor: gender norms, specifically women’s and their husbands’ views toward gender roles. Parents’ or in-laws’ views play a smaller role. Women suffer a larger child penalty in individual earnings if they or their spouses hold traditional views compared to those who, or whose spouses, hold more egalitarian views. Potential channels are that traditional views may predispose mothers to focus more on household activities and/or engage in informal jobs that are more flexible and family friendly.

Lending technologies and consumer defaults in times of crisis: Evidence from Brazil

We investigate the role of lending technologies in consumer credit defaults in Brazil before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, relationship borrowers are less likely to default than others before the pandemic. Second, this effect persists during the pandemic, but it becomes around 60 % smaller. Third, we document important heterogenous effects. Relationship borrowers of appliance finance default less during the pandemic than the ones of general-purpose cash loans. Finally, female relationship borrowers are less likely to default during the pandemic, plausibly because of the higher job uncertainty and the increase of informal jobs for Brazilian women during the COVID-19.

Impact of Venezuelan Migration on the Informal Workforce of Native Workers in Colombia

Colombia experienced a substantial increase in annual migration flow from Venezuela from 2013 to 2019, accumulating 1.7 million migrants by the end of 2019. According to migration data, 2016 was a breaking point in migration growth, with an increase of 137.57% compared with 2015 and at which time the influx of migrant workers began to be massive, rapid, and involuntary. In this regard, the research paper investigates, using a difference-in-differences model, the impacts on the labor market across different definitions of the informal workforce, testing the hypothesis that short-term labor migration increased (1) the number of employed individuals in companies with a workforce of fewer than five people, (2) the number of employed individuals not contributing to the social security system, and (3) the relative participation of the informal workforce in total employment from 2015 to 2018. The main results indicate an expansion in the labor market’s informal segment, increasing the number of non-returned native workers in the informal workforce without significant increases in the participation of informality in total employment. The results remain robust across various samples in models adjusted for departmental-, municipal-, and individual-level data. Following the economic theory, the research findings seem to follow a transmission mechanism in which migrant workers reduce labor costs and increase production in informal markets, providing better conditions to increase informal jobs for native workers. Several national and international stakeholders implementing income-generation alternatives in the border departments focusing on migrant employment services could find the research findings helpful in at least two aspects: (1) fighting cultural stereotypes upon which basis native workers tend to see migration as a threat to their current job holdings requires evidence that shows migrant workers contribute to economic growth and employment; (2) promoting better public policies to take advantage of initial conditions that favor labor integration of migrant workers such as cultural and language similarities among natives and migrants works better when there is evidence of the migration’s positive impacts.

Dynamic Relationship Between Informal Sector and Unemployment: A Mathematical Model

Shortage of formal jobs, lack of skills in workforce and increasing human population proliferate the informal sector. This sector provides an opportunity to unskilled workers to gain skills along with earnings. In this paper, a deterministic nonlinear mathematical model is developed to study the effects of informal skill learning and job generation on unemployment. For the formulated system, feasibility of equilibria and their stability properties are discussed. A pertinent quantity ([Formula: see text]), known as the reproduction number, is calculated and it is shown that the formulated system undergoes transcritical, saddle-node, Hopf and Bogdanov–Takens bifurcations on the variation of [Formula: see text]. The analytically obtained results are validated through numerical simulations. The results obtained from this study indicate that a substantial rate of job generation by self-employed individuals has a stabilizing effect on the system. Moreover, self-employment along with informal skill acquisition through engaging in informal work proves to be an effective measure in curbing the issue of unemployment in society.

Female-headed household characteristics and poverty levels in Namibia: An ordinal probit analysis of the 2015/16 Namibia Household Income and Expenditure Survey

Poverty incidence in Namibia is higher amongst female-headed households (46%) compared to male-headed households (41%). However, this situation is further worsened by females in households increasingly being forced to play multiple, conflicting roles after losing their spouses, and to work in marginal, part-time, informal and low-income jobs due to their lack of access to high-paying jobs, while having to take care of children, siblings and sometimes parents with no form(s) of assistance. In this study, a cross-sectional quantitative study design of the 2015/16 NHIES and an ordinal probit model was used to examine the household characteristics that contribute to poverty among female-headed households in Namibia, as well as their effects on the households’ poverty levels. Results from this study showed that characteristics such as region (p<0.001), main language spoken at home (p<0.001), main source of income (p=0.009), location (p=0.016), and highest level of education (p=0.005) had significant associations with the household poverty levels. Additionally, female-headed households in the urban areas in the Hardap, Otjozondjupa and Zambezi regions, whose main languages spoken were English, German, Zambezi and other languages, with tertiary education and main source of income from commercial farming and other sources were less likely to be severely poor and more likely to be not-poor. Therefore, it is recommended that the Namibian government and policymakers further improve the livelihood of women, especially those heading households in other regions, in terms of a comprehensive social development strategy that covers the immediate needs for short-term and long-term needs of these women.

ROLE OF TRIBAL WOMEN IN INFORMAL SECTOR AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: UNDERSTANDING THE NEXUS IN THE CONTEXT OF ODISHA

During 1970s Keith Hart has coined the term informal sector. The casual laborers in the informal sector lack job security, their workplace is not government-registered, they disregard formal procedures, laws, and regulations, and their working hours are not set. They do not get benefits like provident fund, paid leave, and medical facilities. Indigenous resources are utilized in smallscale, family-owned businesses in the unofficial sector. Tribal women, who are primarily illiterate and among the poorest of the impoverished, enter this industry to make quick money. India is recognized by the International Labour Organization as the homeland of indigenous people. India is home to 705 different tribes, of which 62 are found in Odisha alone. These tribes are primarily involved in the unorganized sector of the economy. The primary informal sectors in which Odisha's indigenous women are employed are in mining and rural development projects as wage laborers, traditional farmers, and gatherers of small forest products. This paper tries to analyse how tribal women in Odisha contribute to the informal economy through age-old practices of environmentally sustainable activities. Furthermore, it tries to explore the issues and concerns they face while working in the informal sectors.

Transitions from the formal to the informal sector in Latin America

It has been widely discussed whether informality is an exclusionary state or reflects voluntary decisions resulting from the attractiveness it might have. This paper contributes to this discussion by analyzing the main patterns and characteristics of those who transition from formal to informal sector jobs and the effects of these movements on relative earnings by examining data from household surveys for Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. The main findings suggest that the composition of the flows of those moving to informal self-employment is more compatible with the exclusionary perspective, while those transitioning to become informal employers tend to have a profile similar to those who remain in the formal sector, aligning with the voluntary view. The behaviour of earnings also supports the heterogeneity view: those becoming self-employed workers experienced a relative loss of income, while those moving to a position as an employer generally experienced a relative increase, in comparison to those who remained in the formal sector.