ABSTRACT
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
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|16 pages
The informal economy revisited
part II|32 pages
Informal employment
chapter 3|5 pages
Advances in statistics on informal employment
part III|26 pages
Economics and the informal economy
part IV|18 pages
Labour law and the informal economy
part V|20 pages
Urban planning and design
part VI|18 pages
Homeworkers
chapter 18|8 pages
Regulating corporations in global value chains to realise labour rights for homeworkers
chapter 19|8 pages
Extending labour standards to informal workers at the base of global garment value chains
part VII|20 pages
Street vendors
part VIII|22 pages
Waste pickers
chapter 23|8 pages
Waste pickers and their right to the city
part IX|30 pages
Social policy and informal workers
chapter 29|5 pages
Informal workers in a context of urbanisation and migration
part X|26 pages
Informal workers and the state