ABSTRACT
In the Romanian transition economy, the marketization process is accompanied by significant non-market activity. The transition should thus be understood as a transition not to capitalism, but to a plural economy, consisting of capitalist/market activities, state activities, and an autonomous household economy. Wages from official jobs, profit from official businesses, and various social transfers are all formal incomes, while non-monetary incomes resulting from the household economy and monetary incomes from the cash informal economy are counted as informal incomes. Involvement in the household economy is strongly determined by rural location, ownership of agricultural assets, a vulnerable occupational household composition, and belonging to a supportive network with a rural nucleus. In rural areas, particularly women receive only very small farmers' pensions, thus many households are pushed to compensate for the insufficiency of the formal income by producing their own food.
