Informal Jobs in Industrialized ‘North’ Countries
Background paper for Women and Men in Informal Employment: A Statistical Picture. In the industrialized North countries, patterns of employment have emerged —or reappeared—that compel attention to informalization. In these countries, the informal economy is conceived as encompassing informalization of employment within formal enterprises as well as self-employment of a particular kind. This interpretation of the informal economy differs from that used for South countries for several reasons. Formal enterprises comprise the bulk of employers in industrialized economies. That formal enterprises should generate arrangements that entail greater informalization of the employment relationship is a concern. While informalization is an elusive phenomenon, one difficult to circumscribe precisely, there is a general consensus among researchers that employment arrangements that entail a more tenuous, often less explicit, connection between the worker and the formal enterprise are part of informalization. Similarly, arrangements that weaken worker access to employment-based social protection can be understood to contribute to informalization. “Nonstandard” jobs are part of this informalization. They encompass jobs that entail an employment arrangement that diverges from regular, year round, full time employment with a single employer. Finally, certain patterns of inter-firm contracting may create conditions propitious to the informalization of employment. This chapter focuses on the best documented and understood aspects of informal employment in industrialized countries. These are nonstandard arrangements and self-employment
View list of all: Research Reports
