Workers and the Global Informal Economy

The global financial crisis and subsequent increase in social inequality has led in many cases to a redrawing of the boundaries between formal and informal work. This interdisciplinary volume explores the role of informal work in today's global economy, presenting economic, legal, sociological, historical, anthropological, political and cultural perspectives on the topic. Workers and the Global Informal Economy explores varying definitions of informality in the backdrop of neo-liberal market logic, exploring how it manifests itself in different regions around the world, and its relationship with formal work. This volume demonstrates how neo-liberalism has been instrumental in accelerating informality and has resulted in the increasingly precarious position of the informal worker. Using different methodological approaches and regional focuses, this book considers key questions such as whether workers exercise choice over their work; how constrained such choices are; how social norms shape such choices; how work affects their well-being and agency; and what role culture plays in the determination of informality. This interdisciplinary collection will be of interest to policy-makers and researchers engaging with informality from different disciplinary and regional perspectives.

Supriya Routh is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada. Vando Borghi is associate professor at the School of Political Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.

Introduction: The Idea of Form, Informality, and Aspirations of Workers Supriya Routh & Vando Borghi Part I: Neo-liberalism, State, and Regulation in formulating Informality 1. Tackling the informal economy: a critical evaluation of the neo-liberal de-regulatory perspective Colin C Williams and Alvaro Martinez 2. Informal Economy and Neoliberal State Zoran Slavnic 3. Reforms, individualization, and informal employment in urban China Sandra Constantin Part II: Law in Formalising Informal Workers 4. The ILO and the informal economy: tackling the concept from a legal perspective Claire La Hovary 5. Framing Informality in a Labour Court Roberto Fragale 6. Inequalities of social security towards informal employment in China Aiqing Zheng 7. Informal Workers and Consumocratic Law Martin Dumas Part III: Informal Workers and their Multidimensional Interactions 8. Informal Employment and Absence of Job Security: Where Social Inequality Begins, and Where it Leads. Employment and Policies in Argentina, 2003-2014 Claudia Danani & Javier Lindenboim 9. Informal employment: Social Space and Capacities of Actors in Russia Petr Bizyukov 10. Informal work and socioeconomic transformations in Africa: the case of Cameroon Alioum Idrissou 11. Informal Workers' Organising Strategies in India and Argentina Supriya Routh & Marisa Fassi 12. Workers & the Global Informal Economy: Issues and Perspectives Vando Borghi