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By combining theories on informal work with data collected through interviews with 39 Syrian refugees, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the various factors driving Syrians, both ordinary workers and employers, into the informal labour market in Turkey. The study shows the differences between the factors pushing Syrian workers into the informal sector (eg administrative obstacles, monetary and non-monetary benefits, unfamiliarity with labour regulations) and the reasons why Syrian business owners and self-employed worked informally (eg the desire to hire Syrian workers, inability to comply with labour regulations, and fear of deportation). By focusing on the reasons behind Syrian employers' decisions to remain in the informal sector, the article shows that such decisions were often based not on profit-seeking but on solidarity with fellow Syrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: En el presente artículo se examina cómo han evolucionado las funciones reguladoras de la legislación laboral en la región de la Comunidad de África Meridional para el Desarrollo (SADC) y se señalan casos de segmentación legal del mercado de trabajo. Los autores explican las características demográficas de la economía informal en los Estados miembros de la SADC y concluyen que, a pesar de la constitucionalización del derecho del trabajo, los mecanismos de legislación laboral de la región contribuyen sustancialmente a la segmentación legal de la economía. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Siguiendo el marco de Dingeldey et al. (2021), pero con un enfoque cualitativo, se analiza la segmentación legal del trabajo en China, la India, Malasia y Viet Nam, prestando atención a los niveles de exclusión y a las jerarquías de protección otorgada. El autor observa varios factores que diferencian a estos países de los del Norte y que determinan sus mercados de trabajo: el tamaño relativo de la población activa que opera fuera de la cobertura efectiva de la reglamentación laboral; la terminología jurídica, de difícil traducción a los idiomas occidentales; y la historia jurídica, especialmente en lo que respecta al desajuste entre los marcos jurídicos y el mercado laboral resultante del colonialismo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour markets in sub‐Saharan Africa are characterized by a gendered division between formal and informal sectors. This article argues that this division originates from a rationality introduced by racist and gendered colonial legal segmentation, produced by a variety of legal regimes in and beyond employment law. Labour market segmentation in postcolonial settings cannot be understood or overcome without analysing the specific colonial institutional origins of the commodification of labour. In sub‐Saharan Africa, the "colonial exploitative legal employment standard" that commodified labour focused on black African male employees for European employers, excluding or marginalizing women and domestic labour relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the regulative functions of labour law have been developed within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and seeks to identify instances of legal segmentation. The authors provide an overview of the demographic nature of the informal economies in SADC Member States, drawing the conclusion that the labour law mechanisms employed in the region substantially contribute to the legal segmentation of the regional economies. This has occurred despite the constitutionalization of labour law in the SADC region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether identical workers are treated homogeneously in different sectors indicates how segmented labor markets are. In this study, we test for segmentation in the Indian labor market by using unit‐level data from two rounds of nationally representative data each round comprising of nearly half a million individuals for the period 2004–2005 and 2011–2012. We use the finite mixture model (FMM) estimation and correct for selection bias to find the existence of two segments of considerable size in informal sector. We identify statistically different latent segments without a priori definition of the segments. Workers in the upper segment of informal employment receive higher returns to education and skills relative to those in the lower segment. Women earn less than men in both segments of informal and formal employment. The gender–wage disparity, however, is less pronounced in the lower segment of informal employment. Furthermore, we estimate the size of involuntary informal employment to be more than 40% of the entire informal employment. Our findings on unobserved heterogeneity suggest the need to rethink about binaries in the labor market as ideas of formal and informal employment lose relevance when multiple latent segments coexist. The study has potential implications for design of labor policies, skilli development programs, and labor legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compliance with labour laws has costs and benefits which depend on the institutional environment in which firms operate. Although several studies have shown a negative effect of informality on firms' productivity and growth, it is a fact that firms may resort to undeclared employment to escape excessive tax or regulatory burden. Our analysis documents empirically that stricter labour market regulation drives small firms to informality to gain flexibility in hiring and firing decisions. By exploiting the geographical heterogeneity of labour informality across Italian provinces as well as a different firing cost regime for firms above the 15-employee threshold, we provide evidence that firms facing stricter employment protection regulation adjust less in the formal labour market when the cost of accessing informal employment is lower. As a result, we show that an easier access to the informal labour market (partially) offsets the negative effects of stricter labour market regulation on productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]