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Employment conditions are important social and commercial determinants of health. Informal employment-also known as 'cash-in-hand' and 'undeclared' work-is a discrete employment condition that has salience around the world. Fuelled by neoliberal ideology, informal employment has become increasingly common in high-income countries. Public health research concerning the health of informal workers comes largely from low- and middle-income countries, where the phenomenon is more visible. There has been little research on the health effects of informal employment in high-income countries including Australia. Twenty-nine workers aged 18 years and older, who were undertaking informal work activities, were recruited using social media and an online marketplace in Tarndanya (Adelaide-Kaurna Country), Australia. Qualitative narrative data, demographic profiles, and physical and mental health scores were collected. Most informal workers reported unfair and indecent employment conditions including job insecurity, low income, coercion, and lack of respect and dignity at work, and were often exposed to unsafe and unhealthy work environments. Workplace injuries and exposure to occupational hazards were common; and Physical and Mental Component Scores were poorer among informal workers when compared to the population of South Australia as a whole. With informal employment in Australia described as part of a 'significant, pervasive, damaging and growing' problem, there is a need for a health promotion lens over industrial relations policies in the interest of creating equitable access to fair and decent work., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Background: Rates of exclusive breastfeeding fall below recommended levels, particularly among women in paid employment. In Mexico, more than half of women are in informal employment, meaning they lack many of the protections that may support breastfeeding., Methods: In-depth interviews with 15 key informants representing government agencies (n = 6 organizations), NGOs (n = 4), international organizations (n = 2), and academia (n = 2) in Mexico. Interviews were conducted between March and June 2023. To understand and describe barriers to breastfeeding among informally employed women in Mexico according to key informants and the current and potential policies to address these barriers, we conducted a qualitative thematic analysis., Results: Current policies to promote, protect, and support breastfeeding predominantly apply to all employed women, but respondents expressed concern that they did not provide adequate protection for women in informal employment. Additional themes concerned the need for relevant programs to be institutionalized and coordinated, discussions of breastfeeding as a right, and the legal equivalence (whether true in practice or not) of formal and informal workers., Conclusions: Women employed in Mexico's informal sector face a dearth of maternity protections. According to key informants, few policies exist to promote, protect, and support breastfeeding among employed women, in general, but the economic vulnerability and challenging working conditions of women in informal employment exacerbates their situation. The lack of access to formal labor protections, such as paid maternity leave, creates a significant barrier to breastfeeding for women in the informal sector. Recommendations include short-term policies to fill gaps in social protection for informally employed women, as well as longer-term solutions such as the development of universal social protection programs and supporting formalization., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Although considerable discussion has been devoted to the macro determinants of labor market variables across genders, comparatively little attention has been given to the contribution of the informal economy to this market. This study was aimed at empirically investigating the impact of the size of the shadow or informal economy (IE) on labor market variables across genders in 12 Middle Eastern countries. The study used quarterly time series data on each country under investigation, covering 1991 to 2015. Phillips-Perron unit root tests were carried out to verify the stationarity of the examined economic series. An autoregressive distributed lag approach was adopted to conduct cointegration tests and estimate long-run regression coefficients and error correction terms. The results indicated that the IE served men and women differently across countries. Whereas this economy had a long-run positive relationship with men's employment rates in Bahrain, Iran, Qatar, and Turkey, this relationship existed among women only in Israel. IE activities matter in the employment of men and women in Middle Eastern countries. The sizes of IEs in the labor market are a significant factor that favors men's employment rather than that of women., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

A large proportion of the older population in India constitutes an undeniable share of workforce after the retirement age. This stresses the need to understand the implications of working at older ages on health outcomes. The main objective of this study is to examine the variations in health outcomes by formal/informal sector of employment of older workers using the first wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India. Using binary logistic regression models, the results of this study affirm that type of work does play a significant role in determining health outcomes even after controlling socio-economic, demographic, life-style behaviour, childhood health and work characteristics. The risk of Poor Cognitive Functioning (PCF) is high among informal workers, while formal workers suffer greatly from Chronic Health Conditions (CHC) and Functional Limitations (FL). Moreover, the risk of PCF and/or FL among formal workers increases with the increase in risk of CHC. Therefore, the present research study underscores the relevance of policies focusing on providing health and healthcare benefits by respective economic activity and socio-economic position of older workers., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Chowdhury et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: There is a widespread acceptance and shift towards sustainable, inclusive and smart mobility solutions around the world. However, in Karachi, poorly coordinated urban planning, lack of effective governance structure and investment in transport, has allowed the growth of an almost unregulated and ungovernable informal transport sector. Women are more severely affected by the poor service since men not only have more space allocated to them on public transport but also have the freedom to use alternative and cheaper private vehicles such as motorbikes and cycles. Poor representation of women in the transport sector further aggravates the situation., Objective: The paper aims to highlight the gender-disaggregated effects of poor transport design, provision and lack of personal agency on mobility, for emphasising the social and cultural attitudes faced by female employees. It argues that not integrating the gender-based disadvantages faced by women into planning, reinforces their disadvantaged position and force them to take complex trips., Methods: Scenario-based questions were designed for focus group discussion which covered not only the everyday mobility challenges but also their reactions to the potential solutions. For a gender-based comparative analysis, two separate focus group discussions were organised., Results: Adopting a sector-based mapping approach of the issues discussed in the groups helped understand the complexity of female user experience at various levels, starting from planning or discussing the trips with families, to making modal choices. It also helped to tease out the impact of these issues on their employment opportunities as early-career women., Conclusion: The model proposed in this paper can help illustrate where changes can be made in the system considering the social aspects of transport.

This article advances the understanding of when and how formal status of small-scale entrepreneurs can contribute to higher growth in comparison to their informal counterparts. Our integrative framework suggests that both formal status and personal initiative (PI) behavior have a common pathway to predict firm growth. More importantly, formal firms improve their growth perspectives only if the entrepreneurs show a high degree of PI. The integrative framework was tested using longitudinal data with 2 measurement points with a total of 190 formal and informal entrepreneurs in the Sub-Saharan African country of Zimbabwe. Results show that both formal status and PI have indirect effects on firm growth through available resources. Further, PI has a dual-path moderating effect on the indirect effect of formal status to firm growth such that the indirect effect of formal status on firm growth via available resources is strongest when entrepreneurs have high PI, but there is no indirect effect when PI is low. Our research shows the importance of considering the interplay of institutional and psychological factors for explaining firm growth in developing countries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Kenya currently lacks evidence on whether income in the informal sector is sustainable and predictable and therefore able to support financing of universal health coverage (UHC). This article demonstrates the financial potential of informal sector entities to sustainably finance UHC in Kenya. Data were collected using a standardized questionnaire on the following topics: nature and sustainability of informal sector entities, indicators of financial potential, and socioeconomic status. Both descriptive and multivariate analyses were used. The findings indicate that income in the informal sector is generally low although investors in health/medical, stationery, entertainment, manufacturing and craft as well as transportation tend to have higher and more consistent incomes than most others in both sites. Mean monthly incomes ranged from 16.7 USD (lowest) to 786.5 USD (highest). The urban informal sector recorded higher mean monthly incomes of 195.8 USD compared to 77.9 USD in the rural area ( P < 0.001). The most sustainable entities in the urban area included stationery (67%), repair and maintenance (50%), food vending (49%), shopkeeping (48%), and clothing and beauty products (43%). Farming (90%), manufacturing and craft (86%), and health/medical (100%) were the most sustainable in the rural area. Key predictors of sustainable informal sector entities include monthly expenditure patterns, gender, marital status, household structure, number of employees in an entity, and land ownership in the rural area and number of entities owned. Informal sector entities are mostly unsustainable, meaning that the majority of premium contributors will not be consistent in payment and will likely to require subsidies.

The study aimed to assess willingness to pay for family-based social health insurance and its determining factors among informal workers in Vietnam. A double-bounded dichotomous choice approach was used to elicit the willingness to pay of 391 heads of uninsured households. The study indicates that 48.8% of 391 uninsured households were willing to pay for family-based health insurance. The households were willing to pay about 921.9 thousand Vietnamese dongs per household per year (US$42). The factors that significantly affected willingness to pay were household income, number of uninsured members in a household, and sickness of the household head. The study suggests that a feasible premium for family-based health insurance supported by government subsidy, along with attention to the quality improvements of health services, could be an effective means to increase coverage among the informal sector workers.

Informal employment, in which workers have no security of employment and receive few or no health insurance benefits, has risen sharply in urban China in the last decade. The percentage of women in informal employment in China is higher than in the formal employment sector; 'feminization' has thus become a key feature of informal employment in China. A feminized informal labor sector has far-reaching effects on the status of women's health and on women's health-seeking behavior. To better understand this behavior, especially barriers to health seeking, we conducted 34 interviews informally employed women in Guangzhou, China. For comparative purposes, we also interviewed 22 men in the informal labor sector. Findings reveal that compared with men, women have more serious health problems but report seeking medical attention less frequently. Financial constraints, distrust of doctors and medical expenses, unfriendly treatment environments and traditional attitudes about health and illness among women were the main barriers to health seeking. Implications for health promotion are discussed., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Informal employment represents more than half of nonagricultural employment in most developing regions, contributes to the overall economy, and provides pathways to reduction of poverty and inequality. Support to the informal economy should include the expansion of occupational health and safety to include informal workers, based on an analysis of their work places and work risks. The paper presents main schools of thought and argues for a holistic understanding of the different segments of the informal work force and for policies and interventions tailored to the needs and constraints of these different segments. The paper recommends a policy approach which seeks to extend social protection, including occupational health and safety services, to informal workers, and to increase the productivity of informal enterprises and informal workers through an enabling environment and support services. The paper calls for a new paradigm of a hybrid economy which would value and integrate the informal economy alongside the formal economies., (© The Author(s) 2016.)

Background: Informal workers often face considerable risks and vulnerabilities as a consequence of their work and employment conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the interplay between the experience of informal work and access to health, using as an example, female beer promoters employed in the informal economy, in the Lao People's Democratic Republic., Methods: In-depth interviews were undertaken with 24 female beer promoters working in beer shops, restaurants and entertainment venues in Vientiane City. The recruitment strategy of snowball sampling was used. Interviews explored the beer promoter's experience of the organization of work, perceived healthcare needs, access to healthcare and insurance, and health seeking practices. The data was analysed thematically and subsequently using Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field., Results: Most of the beer promoters included in the study were 18 years of age, single, had worked as beer promoters for more than one year and just over half were working to support their higher education. The beer promoters demonstrated a holistic view of health, also viewing good health as contributing to being beautiful - an important attribute in their work. Many reported that their work conditions, including the noisy environment, exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, long hours on their feet and sexual harassment negatively affected their physical and mental health. Only four participants had any form of health insurance with access to healthcare constrained by individual characteristics, health system factors and the conditions of their informal employment., Conclusions: Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, the study shows how both employment and illness are linked to habitus embodied in everyday practices, access to capital and the position the female beer promoters hold in the social hierarchy in the field of employment.

The objective of this article is to provide a summary of the issues related to occupational safety and health and well-being among workers in the informal economy of Thailand, with a special emphasis on home-based workers. The reviewed literature includes documents and information sources developed by the International Labour Organization, the National Statistical Office of Thailand, peer-reviewed scientific publications, and master's theses conducted in Thailand. This work is part of a needs and opportunities analysis carried out by the Center for Work, Environment, Nutrition and Development--a partnership between Mahidol University and University of Massachusetts Lowell to identify the gaps in knowledge and research to support government policy development in the area of occupational and environmental health for workers in the informal economy., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

Background: Informal employment (IE) is one of the least studied employment conditions in public health research, mainly due to the difficulty of its conceptualization and its measurement, producing a lack of a unique concept and a common method of measurement., Objective: The aim of this review is to identify literature on IE in order to improve its definition and methods of measurement, with special attention given to high-income countries, to be able to study the possible impact on health inequalities within and between countries., Methods: A scoping review of definitions and methods of measurement of IE was conducted reviewing relevant databases and grey literature and analyzing selected articles., Results: We found a wide spectrum of terms for describing IE as well as definitions and methods of measurement. We provide a definition of IE to be used in health inequalities research in high-income countries. Direct methods such as surveys can capture more information about workers and firms in order to estimate IE., Conclusions: These results can be used in further investigations about the impacts of this IE on health inequalities. Public health research must improve monitoring and analysis of IE in order to know the impacts of this employment condition on health inequalities.

"Using data on undocumented immigrants in the city of Rotterdam, it is argued that peculiarities of the Dutch housing market, especially the large degree of decommodification of the housing stock, lead to a specific housing situation and housing career of illegal immigrants.... The housing situation of undocumented immigrants in Rotterdam clearly shows how formal arrangements create conditions for informal practices.... A comparison between Dutch and U.S. data shows that differences in formal arrangements have substantial effects on the potential of ethnic solidarity within immigrant communities.", (excerpt)

"This article demonstrates how Portugal, despite appearing to be a country which would be [an] unattractive country to immigrants, is rapidly becoming a country of immigration. The existence and extent of opportunities for immigrants in Portugal is assessed with this objective in mind. On the basis of an analysis of the country's labour market, the immigrants' economic profiles and the Portuguese informal economy--and the interaction of these factors--it is concluded that the Portuguese economy is currently generating labour demands which the immigrants are satisfying. In some cases they complement and in others they substitute for the domestic labour force.", (excerpt)

"In this article, we [explore] the relationship between informal economic activities and recent immigrants in the Netherlands.... We will give an overview of important trends on both the demand and the supply side of entrepreneurial activities in the informal economy. We argue that the potential for informal economic activities by immigrants in large Dutch cities has been growing since the early 1980s. After having outlined this analytical framework, we examine some recent evidence on informal economic activities by immigrants in the Netherlands, especially in the bakeries sector, before concluding the discussion.", (excerpt)

"A theoretical model of rural-urban migration has been developed with special reference to the informal sector. The wage rate and employment in the informal sector are determined endogenously. The paper shows the simultaneous existence of open unemployment and informal sector in the urban area in migration equilibrium. The effects of alternative subsidy policies on unemployment and welfare of the workers are studied." The model is intended primarily for use in analyzing trends and policies in developing countries.

"This paper examines data from published sources and ethnographic studies conducted by the authors in Oakland, California and Philadelphia [Pennsylvania] to assess the economic situation of Vietnamese refugees in the United States. Evidence suggests that in strong contrast to being a 'success story,' the economic status of many recently arrived Vietnamese refugees is characterized by unstable, minimum-wage employment, welfare dependency and participation in the informal economy. The paper suggests that the group's economic opportunities have been limited by the configuration of circumstances that have surrounded their entry and settlement into the United States as refugees, as well as by the demographic structure of the group.", (excerpt)

The author discusses the census assessment of economic activity and occupation in the Pacific Island nations of Oceania. "In the Pacific Islands, subsistence and certain kinds of cash activities are often overlooked, and this omission tends to make vulnerable groups, especially women, less visible to planners and politicians. Some progress has been made in incorporating nonwage and noncash activities into recent classification systems used in censuses. One of the purposes of the new International Classification of Occupations...is to provide an improved system of classification for such activities.... Also needed in the Pacific are systems for providing more meaningful data collection and analysis on the relationship between individual and household activities.", (excerpt)

In a survey of 2111 mothers in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, the relationship between infant mortality and maternal employment was examined. By the use of logit regression taking socioeconomic variables and breastfeeding into account, it was shown that children of working class mothers are likely to experience higher rates of infant death than those of non-working mothers, and these rates are higher in mothers working in the informal than in the formal sector. No effect of duration of breastfeeding was detectable, probably due to the universal practice of long lactation among the Yoruba. Intensity of breastfeeding is a key variable, for when this is taken into account, the effect of maternal occupation on infant death disappears. Other variables associated with infant mortality are mother's education, father's income, mother's age, and age of infant.

Only recently have development studies begun to examine the complex set of relationships between urbanization, the growth of the informal sector, and internal migration in Latin America. This paper suggests that the economic crisis of the 1980s has resulted in significant changes in these phenomena and that 1 of the most important changes has been the growth of return international migration between Latin American countries. Also of importance are the continued migration flows to North America. The paper argues that the interconnectedness of these phenomena requires more multinational research efforts.

A population census is the primary source of demographic information for every country. In planning for the 1990 round of censuses, the international community has adopted a number of recommendations for changes for countries and regions to consider in planning for and carrying out their census. In particular, alternatives for the measurement of economic activity have been proposed in order to obtain a more realistic indication of employment and unemployment in countries where the agriculture and informal sectors are important. New recommendations have also been made for the measurement of stocks and flows of international migrants. In each of the major regions, recommendations have been adapted to local concerns. Preparations are being made for technical cooperation in the 190 census round, and a calendar of the census dates in all countries is shown to be nearly complete.

This paper sheds light on the internal heterogeneity within the informal economy by examining the working conditions of migrant informal workers in China. It presents the first attempt to test the WIEGO model on the relationship between informality, income, poverty and gender. Based on 107,020 samples of informal workers from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), economic, social and occupational health components of working conditions of migrant informal workers in five employment-status tiers are analysed. The results show the significant heterogeneity within informal workers in terms of their income, working intensity, labour contracts, social security, union and community support. The relationships between the informal employment tiers and income, poverty and gender show a pattern that is not fully in line with the WIEGO model, suggesting the complexity and plurality of heterogeneities in informal employment. The paper concludes by calling for research on regional varieties of the heterogeneity in informal employment worldwide to better understand the unfolding of the inequality-informality nexus in specific contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Longstanding evidence in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries shows a high prevalence of unemployment and informality among a large fraction of population, and at the same time gender disparities in labour force participation and occupational mobility. Why is there such persistent labour‐market segmentation? What is the impact and potential of various formalisation policies? An overview of the informal economy across three middle‐income MENA countries (Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia) is provided with respect to taxonomy, coverage and drivers. Transition matrices and multinomial logistic regressions are applied to longitudinal microdata from Labour‐Market Panel Surveys, focusing on workers' occupational mobility in relation to their previous status, age cohort, gender and other demographics. Persistent segmentation and low occupational mobility in all countries suggest that informal employment is not driven by choice on the labour supply side but by structural constraints on the demand side. Existing formalisation policies based on distinct stick and carrot strategies, and targeting of existing businesses and workers achieve rather modest impacts. One recommendation to supplement policies for decent jobs creation is to promote social and solidarity enterprises and extend microfinance to informal enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Egypt's labor market transition dynamics post-Arab Spring based on the two most recent rounds of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey conducted in 2012 and 2018. In addition to providing disaggregated level analysis by examining labor market transitions by gender, education, and age groups, our paper provides a cross-country perspective by comparing Egypt's labor market transitions with Jordan's. Regression analyses focusing on transitions to and from the dominant absorbing labor market states in Egypt – public sector employment for both genders, non-participation for women, and the informal sector for men – show that having a post-secondary education is associated with a lower probability of remaining out of the labor force (OLF) for women who were already OLF at baseline, while being married at baseline is found to be a significant predictor for women to stay out of the labor force if they were already so. As for men, the better educated are found to be more likely to secure formal employment, be it in the public or in the private sector, and also more likely to keep their public formal jobs once they secure them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to the literature studying the substitution and complementarity between corruption and the shadow economy by focusing on the differential effects of various informal employment categories, by gender (informal employment by men vs. women) and across industries (informal employment in the agriculture vs. non‐agriculture sectors). Using cross‐national data, we find evidence of complementarity between corruption and informal employment, after accounting for possible simultaneity. This complementarity holds across different informal employment categories, with some quantitative differences. These findings have policy relevance for the coordination of anti‐corruption and anti‐underground‐economy policies, and whether such policies should be sector specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a form of informal economy, the street-stall economy has a positive role in providing employment opportunities, but at the same time, there are problems such as low quality of employment and insufficient social security. Therefore, the question explored in this paper is whether the quality of informal economy employment generated by the ground stall economy is an effective job and whether it can be a way for low-income groups to earn a living. In this paper, the composition and proportion of the intangible costs of the stall economy and the average monthly income of the urban low-income group are analyzed to determine whether the informal jobs created by the stall economy can meet the basic needs of the urban low-income group. Taking the average per capital income of the low-income group as the standard, if the stall economy can steadily bring more than the standard net income to the low-income group, it means that the informal jobs created by the stall economy are effective jobs. The study shows that nearly 30% of the vendors in the statistics of the monthly net income of the street-stall economy are unable to reach the average income of the low-income group in the city, indicating that the informal economy jobs created by the street-stall economy are of low quality and are not enough to satisfy the basic living needs of the lowest-income group and that the proportion of effective jobs is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several developing economies have been generating fast growth, but formal employment generation remains a concern, causing a significant workforce to continue working in the informal sector. In this context, this study investigates the employment effects of international trade and in‐house R&D in the Indian case. Our attempt is important because India is not only the largest country in terms of population but also the largest working population in the world. We coalesce industry‐level data from two different sources for the period 1991–2018 and employ a powerful system GMM estimator in the analysis. Our findings are interesting and vital. We show that although the role of trade is overall positive, export and import have contrasting roles individually in generating employment. Most generally, exporting is a generator of employment, while importing causes a loss in it. Our analysis implies that the interplay of trade, and individually that of exports and imports, with in‐house R&D depends on many factors and may be more intricate than previously assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is intended to examine the relationship between the Employment Vulnerability Index (EVI) and labor informality in Ecuador in 2018, 2019, and 2021 (considering both preand post-pandemic periods). The EVI was constructed using a polychoric principal components analysis (PCPA), while a logistic regression model and a two-stage least squares linear probability model were employed to evaluate its association with workers’ informal status. The findings indicate a positive correlation between employment vulnerability and the likelihood of a worker being engaged in the informal sector, with this correlation being particularly pronounced among individuals with higher EVI scores. Accordingly, policymakers are advised to concentrate their efforts on enhancing workers’ conditions by increasing educational attainment and implementing programs designed to incentivize formal employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]