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The study examines the consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic‐induced lockdown on the socio‐economic status of 212 female migrant workers employed in the informal sector, originating from four underprivileged districts of West Bengal, India. The study assesses the changes in their scope of employment, financial instability, and the level of violence experienced within households and workplaces in the pre‐pandemic and post‐lockdown phases. We apply the binary logistic regression to identify factors influencing their low employment scope, the t‐test to observe changes in their income as a consequence of the pandemic, and the Wilcoxon signed‐rank test alongside effect size analysis to detect any rise in experiences of violence and exploitation against women. The findings suggest a notable decrease in their employment scope due to the absence of previous jobs, low wages, insecure workplaces, and family constraints; a decline in earnings; and an increased incidence of violence against them. The research suggests designing reforms to improve the current situation of female migrants, who represent one of the most marginalized sections of society. Formalizing the labor market and ensuring proper registration of these women would enable them to gain access to social security benefits, pension schemes, and relief packages that are vital for their well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the impact of a rise in oil prices on the wages of workers in the unorganized sector of a developing economy. The model economy is comprised of two non‐traded transport sectors, formal and informal, along with other sectors. The main results that we obtain are as follows. The informal transport sector contracts when fuel price rises and lowers the real income of the informal workers. The per‐unit return to land rises, and the factor readjustments even raise the output of other sectors in the economy. We also show why inclusion of non‐passenger transport services does not alter the main outcomes of the model. [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 applies a qualitative approach to the legal segmentation analysis developed by Dingeldey et al. (2021), considering exclusion from, and hierarchies of, worker protection. Examining the cases of China, India, Malaysia and Viet Nam, the author finds that several factors distinguish these countries from those in the global North and produce distinct labour market outcomes, namely: in terms of the relative size of the workforce operating outside the effective coverage of employment regulation; legal terminology that is not readily translated into Western languages; and legal history, especially as regards the mismatch between statutory frameworks and the labour market resulting from colonialism. [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]

This article, titled "Regional development in Latin America," focuses on various aspects of regional productivity in Latin America. It includes a cross-country comparison of urbanization and productivity, highlighting the importance of differentiating between the formal and informal sectors. The article also discusses the role of innovation in economic growth, with a specific focus on innovations in Brazilian regions. Additionally, it addresses the high levels of inequality in Latin American countries, with a particular emphasis on Colombia. The article provides insights into the dynamics of the labor market and the effects of informality, agglomeration, and regional heterogeneity on productivity and growth in the region. [Extracted from the article]

In contrast to the majority of studies that have treated informal workers as a single homogeneous group, this article accounts for the possibility of "winners" and "losers" among informal workers. Applying unconditional quantile regressions to data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, the authors are able to estimate the formal–informal wage gaps for different segments of the earnings distribution. Although the evidence confirms the existence of a substantial earnings penalty for many informal workers, there is also a group who earn roughly similar incomes to formal workers. The findings are consistent with Fields's (1990 and 2005) model of heterogeneous informal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Under a centrally planned system, China made significant achievements in gender equality. Half a century later, China has joined the ranks of upper‐middle‐income countries, and decades of rapid growth have accompanied major structural changes in the economy. We assess the evolution of women's economic opportunities during the period, focusing on labour force participation, occupational segregation, leadership in business, and the gender wage gap, as well as informal sector employment and migration. We undertake a review of existing research and conduct new empirical analysis using a combination of data sources, including four waves of Chinese population census data through 2010, and province‐level migration data. We focus especially on migrant women, a group typically excluded from similar studies. Although investments in human capital have advanced prospects for better‐paid jobs for women, we find that rapid economic growth has not alleviated discrimination against women rooted in cultural and social norms and that the implementation of existing laws designed to protect and support women needs to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal work, defined as work performed without a formal contract, lowers productivity, reduces tax revenue and hampers economic growth. Reducing informal work is a policy objective in developed and developing countries alike. Yet, particularly since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, most socio-economic policy reforms across Europe have reduced the generosity of unemployment benefit schemes and deregulated employment protection. The authors argue that, while such reforms may have contributed to reducing unemployment, they might also have increased the incidence of informal work. Using European Social Survey data for 2004-12, they find that labour protection is effective in reducing informal wage employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether informal sector jobs are a source of training for young less-educated workers. Controlling for worker and job characteristics, it is found that, in the early years of workers' careers in Mexico, wage growth in the informal sector is higher than in the formal sector. This result is consistent with general human capital investment on-the-job if the informal labor market is more competitive than the formal labor market due to frictions generated by labor regulations. ( JEL O17, J24, J310) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates wage curves for formal and informal workers using a rich individual level data for Turkey over the period 2005-2009. The wage curve is an empirical regularity describing a negative relationship between regional unemployment rates and individuals' real wages. While this relationship has been well documented for a number of countries including Turkey, less attention has focused on how this relationship differs for informal versus formal employment. This is of utmost importance for less developed countries where informal employment plays a significant role in the economy. Using the Turkish Household Labour Force Survey observed over 26 NUTS 2 regions, we find that real hourly wages of informal workers in Turkey are more sensitive to variations in regional unemployment rates than wages of formal workers. This is true for all workers as well as for different gender and age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informality is widespread in most developing countries. In Latin America, 50% of salaried employees work informally. Three stylized facts characterize informality: (1) small firms tend to operate informally while large firms tend to operate formally; (2) unskilled workers tend to be informal while skilled ones have formal jobs; (3) ceteris paribus, secondary workers (a worker other than the household head) are less likely to operate formally than primary workers. We develop a model that accounts for all these facts. In our model, both heterogeneous firms and workers have preferences over the sector they operate and choose optimally whether to function formally or informally. There are two labor markets, one formal and the other informal, and both firms and workers act unconstrained in them. By contrast, a prominent feature of the preexisting literature is that workers' decisions play no role in determining the equilibrium of the economy. In our model, policies that reduce the supply of workers in the informal labor market at given wages will increase the level of formality in the economy. This has noteworthy implications for the design of social programs in developing countries. We also show that an increase in the participation of secondary workers would tend to raise the level of informality in the economy. ( JEL J24, J33) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the growing participation of women in the labor force as changes happened in the aspects of economic, social and cultural issues in Latin America. The number of women in urban areas grows around 40 percent of the population and the labor market gives certain rights to enjoy that upgrades their status in the community. But the favors offered are still not sufficient to support indigenous women of African origin to work with equal dignity. Many working women landed in the informal sectors with lower wages and have no chance to become enterprisers. In spite of their good performance in work that adapts to the current demands, still unemployed females are greater than males. The growing female force is attributed to better schooling, urban growth, and low birth rate.

This article attempts to explain the underground economy, focusing on state and social structure. It was learned that developments within western capitalism have stimulated considerable interest in the collective, organized aspects of clandestine production, which form the core of the contemporary underground economy. Assumptions that off-the-books employment is extensive and rising throughout the advanced capitalist world, and that this is related either to a crisis of capitalism or to a crisis of the state, was considered. It was argued that the development of a clandestine sector depends on the combined availability of three structural resources such as a dispersed economy, labour market segmentation and a dense system of social networks. It was also argued that the availability of these resources is largely influenced by the historically developed structure and activities of the state, specifically its forms of legal and organizational closure. It was discovered that clandestine work frequently entails a collective, organized endeavour that can involve the mobilization of entire neighborhoods, communities or even industries. According to emerging consensus, such form of underground activity, unmeasured, untaxed and unregulated, is expanding throughout western capitalism.