Book Launch: COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
- May 30, 2024
- Online
Date: 30 May, 2024
Time: 9.00 Eastern Daylight Time / 14.00 British Summer Time
Duration: 60 minutes
Language: English only
The global economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic only to enter a cost-of-living crisis. With the effects of these shocks on the labour market still fresh, a new edited volume, “COVID-19 and the Informal Economy: Impact, Recovery and the Future” highlights some of the key lessons learned from the pandemic and charts a way forward for a sustainable and inclusive recovery.
In particular, the key challenge for the post-COVID global economy is whether the disproportionate impact of the crisis on workers in informal employment, who form the majority of the world’s workforce, will be addressed. Or whether harmful and negative stereotypes will persist. The contributors to the volume analyse the impact of the COVID crisis on workers in Asia, Africa, and North and Latin America, interrogate whether and which economic recovery plans and schemes include workers in informal employment, and explore what a more inclusive and sustainable recovery might look like for the majority of the world’s workforce. These discussions are timely and represent an important opportunity for a forward-looking response to successive crises that have set back progress toward growth and poverty reduction.
This webinar –co-hosted by UNU-WIDER and WIEGO– will serve to launch the book and feature reflections and a Q&A with the book editors and authors.
Speakers
- Kunal Sen, Director, UNU-WIDER
- Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Affiliated Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Co-Founder and Board member, WIEGO.
- Michael Rogan, Research Associate, Urban Policies Programme, WIEGO,
Ravi Kanbur, T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs International Professor of Applied Economics and Management, Professor of Economics, Cornell University will provide introductory remarks.
