ABSTRACT
In the problematic years of 'transition' in Bulgaria, the informal economy has turned into a means of physical survival for an entire social strata in the country. Under socialism, informal activities were a strategy of coping with the chronic shortages of goods, while today, during the problematic 'transition', they are a strategy for dealing with the crisis. These phenomena are likewise geographically determined. The comparison between agricultural employment in Bulgaria, on the one hand, and Eastern Serbia, on the other, provides material for deliberation, which goes beyond the confines of the subject of the informal economy. The role of the complex family as the social environment for carrying out agricultural activities as a combination of formal and informal type of employment is illustrated by several examples, which outline a pattern economically based on private farming. Its specificity is the supplementation of farming as a basic and informal occupation, with non-farming trades and professions.
