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Onoshchenko, Olga. "Tackling the informal economy in Ukraine." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2858/.
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The problem of informal work and informal networks (blat) in Ukraine is long-standing. Until now, research on the informal economy in Ukraine has largely focused on measuring its size rather than exploring the nature and motives of the people engaged in informal activities. Moreover, few studies in relation to Ukraine have sought to evaluate the validity of the contrasting theorisations of the informal economy and no studies in Ukraine have considered the issue of contemporary informal networks (blat). The intention of this thesis is to fill these gaps. In doing so, the objective is to start to resolve the lack of knowledge on the nature of the informal economy which leads to ineffective and even destructive policy approaches to tackling it. The aim of this thesis is to critically evaluate the existing theorisations of the informal economy and their applicability to Ukrainian society in order to start to enable a move towards developing policy solutions for tackling the informal economy. To achieve this aim, a mixed methods approach is adopted in this thesis. The survey, consisting of 200 semi-structured interviews, was carried out in an urban area of Ukraine – the city of Mykolayiv. The data collected was analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the survey affirm that informal activities are diverse in nature and are driven by a variety of motives. Thus, no single existing theory fully explains the informal economy in Ukraine; instead, there is evidence to support each theory of the informal economy. As such, policy responses need to be tailored in order to effectively deal with the challenges faced by the different types of informal activity. Such a response is more likely to result in the formalisation of such activities by removing the barriers to formalisation and nurturing fledgling business activities rather than simply trying to eradicate them.
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Phala, Terrance Madiseng. "Constraints and opportunities in the informal economy." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1019809.
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In spite of the fact that informal traders in the informal economy are viewed as having the greatest prospects for creating jobs and absorbing the unemployed in developing countries, informal traders in Limpopo Province in general, and the city of Polokwane in particular, face various constraints that negatively affect them on a daily basis. The aim of the study has been to explore the constraints and opportunities of informal traders, using the city of Polokwane as a case study. The study has attempted to identify and describe constraints that affect informal traders in the Polokwane city, as well as factors that can enhance their development and growth. The study is exploratory, descriptive and qualitative in nature. Semi-structured faceto-face interviews were conducted to gather data. Findings of the study suggest that the government should improve the effectiveness of its support mechanisms by initiating targeted support programmes specifically tailored for informal traders at the survivalist level.
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Weston, Alia. "Creativity in the informal economy of Zimbabwe." Thesis, Kingston University, 2012. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/24838/.
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My research explores the notion of creativity in the context of informal work. Existing literature on the subject has primarily focused on identifying the factors which enhance or constrain creativity in the organisational or work context. Most research has been developed and implemented in western contexts such as the United States or Europe, and there is limited explanation available of creativity in non-western contexts. There is also no research explicitly directed at explaining creativity in the informal sector, which presents a gap in the literature. I have therefore sought to enrich this literature by constructing a conceptual perspective that explains creative engagement in informal work, a methodology to explore this concept, and stories that illustrate how this occurs. I have constructed my conceptual perspective of creativity by drawing on de Certeau's (1988/1984) notion of creative tactics. I propose that creativity is the tactical subversion of space within an order, where a person uses constraints to their advantage, to take action. This involves the ability to engage in plurality, use what one has at hand, and take advantage of chance opportunities that arise. In order to explore my conceptual perspective, I carried out my research during the post-2000 crisis in Zimbabwe because there was a high prevalence of informal work during this time. I have developed my methodology - focused narrative ethnography - to capture the perspectives and dynamic engagement of people working in the informal sector, and intensively collected data in the form of narratives, observations, and visual material. In addition, I have written a series of stories to illustrate the different ways in which this occurs. These reflect changing attitudes and practices of work, as well as artistic and communal engagement in informal work. My findings reflect three main perspectives. First, informal work is a space that enables creative action. Second, creative engagement is a complex process that occurs in moments of creative action, wherein a person tactically uses their constraints to their advantage. Third, these moments shift and change in relation to the ongoing and changing nature of constraint that is inherent in many contexts of lnformal work. A further finding is that several parallels can be drawn between the literature referring to survival during difficult situations and my explanation of creativity, so it may be a useful addition to the vocabulary of work-related creativity literature. My findings are important because I highlight at the most basic level what people go through to identify opportunity, and my perspective of creativity may thus provide fresh insights into other areas linked to creativity, such as innovation or entrepreneurship.
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Mubarak, Marwan M. Mirghani. "Sudan : the urban informal economy and migration." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.430702.
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Igudia, E. O. "The Nigerian informal economy : a regional analysis." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2014. http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/81/.
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In recent years, particularly post 1990 and contrary to the expectation and predictions of many economists, there is ample evidence that the informal economy has expanded globally (Schneider et al., 2010). This, in addition to finding out the potential of the informal economy, has sparked renewed interest amongst researchers. Until now, however, most of the ‘empirical’ studies have concentrated on the Asian and Latin American countries (Debrah 2007), and most methodological approaches for studying the concept have remained debatable (Aryeetey, 2010). This thesis seeks to close a gap in the literature by developing two novel research frameworks: the Individual, Firm and State (IFS), and Four Circles (4Cs) to explain the link between theories and methods, as well as the impacts and benefits, of the informal economy. The study also utilises secondary and collected-primary data, modified-MIMIC and Currency approaches, to explore the determinants, characteristics, and regional prevalence of the Nigerian informal economy, as well as the relationships between the Nigerian informal economy and key macroeconomic variables/business enterprises. The results of the study demonstrate that the Nigerian informal economy has 65.4% participation rate, contributes an equivalent of 52-53% of official GDP, and provides cheap and easily accessible goods/services to members of the public, income generation for the government, and job, income and poverty reduction for informal participants. However, participants in the sector are confronted with many challenges: inadequate finances, inconsistent government policies, unfriendly business environment, and inadequate infrastructures. Similarly, the main determinants of the Nigerian informal economy are population growth, corruption, unemployment, and survival factors. Also, the study reports significant regional differences in participants’ income and education levels. Finally, the study finds the informal economy more prevalent in the north-west and south-west regions of Nigeria. Recommendations are proposed on the basis of the IFS; individuals and firms operating in the informal economy are encouraged to build up skills and become membership of relevant-trade unions. The government should implement policies which facilitate the creation of jobs, friendly business environment, entrepreneurial development, financial and training support for participants in the informal economy.
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Smith, Collin E. "The underground economy : estimation techniques and policy implications." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60089.
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This thesis analyzes the estimation procedures and policy implications of an underground economy. In completing this task, we reviewed the techniques developed by Gutmann, Ferge, Tanzi, and others. Further attention was also given to the estimation processes, such as the survey approaches, used by various governments.In analyzing the policy implications of an underground economy, we examined the effects of fiscal and monetary policy, the aggregate statistics, the exchange rate, and other equally important indicators. We concluded that the consequences of a large and growing submerged sector can be devastating to the economic variables.
Finally, this paper attempts to examine the Canadian underground economy. However, since the studies performed on the Canadian underground economy are limited, the task of both reviewing the literature, and determining the Canadian policy implications was perplexing. We concluded that there is a definite need for further study of the Canadian hidden sector.
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Dyantyi, Unathi Sisikelelwe. "Revitalisation of the informal township economy in Mdantsane." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/15611.
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The main focus of this study was to perform an assessment of viable and sustainable means of creating a vibrant and sustainable economy in the Mdantsane Township. In order to perform the assessment objectives were formulated which aimed at assessing whether the informal small business sector of Mdantsane was generating wealth and livelihoods for the people running them. The study also looked at whether the informal business sector is a preferred option by most South Africans or people in the townships would rather seek employment. A number of data collection methods were used in completing this study such as literature reviews and a semi-structured questionnaire. The study revealed that Local Economic development can be implemented in the townships in order to assist in stimulating a vibrant local township economy. The study also revealed that the central focus of Local Economic Development is to support the development, growth and retention of private or co-operative enterprises. The survey conducted in the study further revealed that most businesses in the township are driven by necessity in order for them to start their businesses mainly due to unemployment. These businesses all agreed on the significant role that Local Economic Development can play in assisting township entrepreneurs and communities to grow and prosper.
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Vuletin, Guillermo Javier. "Essays on capital controls and the informal economy." College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/7333.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2007.Thesis research directed by: Economics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Rossis, Nicholas Michael. "The informal economy in Lebanon : dangers and benefits." Thesis, Durham University, 2011. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/733/.
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This thesis investigates through situational and empirical analysis the beneficial and detrimental characteristics of the informal economy in Lebanon and its impact on the public and state interest through its socio-economic associations. The informal economy is a polymorphous entity, and in order to determine its versatile contribution, has been separated into four different variables or key drivers. The four key drivers constitute the determinant variables of the informal economy. The main method used to explore the four determinant variables is the Force Field analysis. The first key driver is informal remittances as they represent a significant fraction of the informal economic activity in Lebanon and make a major contribution to Gross Domestic Product. The second driver is corruption, as this involves massive economic transactions on a daily basis, with an enormous impact at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. The third key driver is the informal employment and commerce sector, as the unpaid VAT and corporate and income tax evasion results in a huge annual loss of government revenue in Lebanon. The fourth and last key driver is the illegal networks, as Lebanon represents an international hub for smuggling, drug and people trafficking and money-laundering, with strong links with, and implication for, its sectarian constituents. The current situation in Lebanon fuels the creation of a chaotic socio-economic environment where it is impossible to estimate accurately the significance of the informal economy, or indeed the size of the overall economy. As far as possible in this research all the key drivers have been independently and collectively evaluated through the data collected from the primary sources (users/public opinion, government officials and academics) and secondary material in order to assess each key driver’s input to the informal economy. Subsequently the thesis provides an estimation of the beneficial and detrimental contribution of the informal economy in Lebanon, as well as the overall perceptions of each of the respondent groups. Lastly, the primary and secondary materials are collectively assessed from a single perspective to build, using an inductive approach, a theoretical model of the factors which fuel and perpetuate the informal economy in the country. The present thesis may constitute the foundation for future analysis of the informal economy in Lebanon by providing unconventional recommendations. It is an attempt to present the possibility of an alternative approach to the informal economy, by stressing its merits and advantages, while also recognising the dangers and challenges it poses for both the state and the society.
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Tengüz, Alper Selman. "Strategies of the state towards the informal economy." Hamburg Kovač, 2008. http://d-nb.info/995316791/04.
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Porto, Selomi Bermeguy, and 92991746348. "Cooperativismo, alternativa ou ilusão?: um estudo de caso com os trabalhadores informais inseridos no ramo alimentício de salgados nos municípios de Tabatinga e Benjamin Constant, Amazonas." Universidade Federal do Amazonas, 2017. https://tede.ufam.edu.br/handle/tede/6452.
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This research entitled Cooperativism - Alternative or Illusion? A Case Study of the Informal Workers in the Snacks Food Sector in the cities of Tabatinga and Benjamin Constant, Amazonas, is important to elucidate the discussion about informal work and the alternatives to organize the labor force in the bases of a solidarity economy, because, if on the one hand, the number of jobs has decreased, on the other hand, the unemployment rate has increased and, consequently, the labor force in the informal labor market. It shows a reflex of the unemployment scene where the workers moved by the need to ensure family support, many workers have entered the informal labor market as a way to promote employment and monthly income. In general terms, it was sought to know and understand the informal work performance of the snack food sector in the neighboring cities of Tabatinga and Benjamin Constant, as the contribution of cooperativism as an alternative to improve work. The specific purpose was: a) to identify the profile of informal workers and the economic activity of snack food industry; b) to describe the main difficulties that informal workers face in this sector; c) to discuss how the cooperativism may contribute to improve the informal workers condition in the snack food sector. The research was based on the dialectical method, and guided by a qualitative approach, using interviews and application forms with the informal snack workers from the cities of Tabatinga and Benjamin Constant. This research allowed to check that informal activity in the snack food sector is a reality and a part of the regional population daily life, the product sold is part of the consumer's eating habits, which has been seen as an opportunity for income generation for many local families. However, the workers involved in this activity face many problems regarding the limitation of the capital for the acquisition of inputs, lack of equipment and adequate place for production, inadequate infrastructure for commercialization and competitiveness since the concentration of snack sales is one of the main activities in the cities investigated. Considering the facts, is necessary to think about alternatives to improve the work and performance in this market. Therefore, this studies purpose was to propose some alternatives that, these kind of workers, can achieve recognition in their activity and, been covered by public policies that enable them to develop their business activities.
A presente pesquisa titulada “Cooperativismo - Alternativa ou Ilusão? Um Estudo de Caso com os trabalhadores informais inseridos no ramo alimentício de salgados nos Municípios de Tabatinga e Benjamin Constant, Amazonas”, é direcionada para elucidar uma discussão em torno do trabalho informal e as alternativas de organização da força de trabalho nas bases da economia solidária. Isso porque se por um lado, o número de postos de trabalho diminuiu, por outro lado, o índice de pessoas desempregadas aumentou e, consequentemente a expressão da massa trabalhista no mercado de trabalho informal. Reflexo do cenário de desemprego e movidos pela necessidade de garantir o sustento familiar muitos trabalhadores têm ingressado no mercado do trabalho informal como meio de promover ocupação e renda. Buscou-se em termos gerais conhecer e entender a atuação do trabalho informal no ramo alimentício de salgados nos municípios fronteiriços de Tabatinga e Benjamin Constant, assim como a possível contribuição do cooperativismo como alternativa de melhoria do trabalho. A imersão na temática, de forma específica, foi norteada para: a) Identificar o perfil dos trabalhadores informais e da atividade econômica do ramo alimentício de salgados; b) Descrever as principais dificuldades enfrentadas pelos trabalhadores informais inseridos no ramo alimentício de salgados; c) Discutir, em que medida, o cooperativismo poderá vir a contribuir para a melhoria do trabalho dos trabalhadores informais inseridos no ramo alimentício de salgados. A pesquisa foi direcionada nas bases do método dialético, norteada, principalmente, por uma abordagem qualitativa, fazendo uso de entrevistas e aplicação de formulários junto aos “salgadeiros” informais dos municípios de Tabatinga e Benjamin Constant. A pesquisa possibilitou verificar que a atividade informal no ramo alimentício de salgados é uma realidade e faz parte do cotidiano da população regional, o produto comercializado faz parte do hábito alimentar do consumidor, o que tem sido visto como oportunidade de geração de renda para muitas famílias locais. Todavia, os trabalhadores inseridos nesta atividade enfrentam muitos problemas quanto à limitação de capital para aquisição de insumos, falta de equipamentos e espaço adequado para produção, infraestrutura inadequada para comercialização e competitividade uma vez que a concentração de vendas de salgados é uma das principais atividades nos municípios pesquisados. Considerando os fatos é necessário pensar em alternativas de melhoria do trabalho e atuação no mercado destes trabalhadores. Assim, as propostas de saídas alternativas para que esses trabalhadores possam alcançar reconhecimento em sua atividade e, serem contemplados por políticas públicas que os habilitem a se desenvolverem em suas atividades de negócio, é o direcionamento que se pretendeu dar por meio deste estudo.
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Park, Hyun Kyu. "Empirical analysis of disguised relationships between formal economy firms and informal economy enterprises." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/277907.
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Scholarly interest in the informal economy has burgeoned in recent years, in anticipation of expanding our knowledge beyond the easily observable organizational life that takes place within the formal economic system. In line with this research endeavour, the present work represents a focused study of what I have labelled 'disguised relationships'. These ties result in repeated transactions between informal economy enterprises, which fail to comply with certain elements of the laws and regulations applying to their operations, and formal firms, which operate within the state-sanctioned formal economy. Drawing on an abductive reasoning process and grounded theory approach, I conduct a case study that captures the interactions between two leading cosmetics firms (i.e. formal firms) and ten daigou enterprises (i.e. informal enterprises) between 2013 and 2017. The examination of multiple data sources (i.e. interviews, news articles and social media observations) suggests that the organizational landscape under study differs considerably from the one in which formal firms are portrayed as rational choosers of best-performing partners or exploiters of subordinate actors within the informal economy. Rather, disguised relationships emerge in a unilateral and disguised fashion following the lead of informal enterprises, and formal firms unintentionally engage in the unexpected ties. Furthermore, disguised relationships create the image of dynamism replete with, metaphorically speaking, give-take, push-pull and chase-evade. More specifically, the emergent model illustrates the interactive practices through four mechanisms: (a) informal enterprises gaining social acceptability from certain society groups and acquiring the necessary resources from the members of identity-based groups; (b) drawing on this momentum, informal enterprises forming unilateral ties with formal firms in a disguised manner; (c) formal firms counteracting the unexpected ties, with temporary compromising on the counteracting efforts; and (d) informal enterprises avoiding the combatting efforts of formal firms through socially learnt tactics and leveraging network brokers (i.e. actors sharing the same ethnic/cultural backgrounds with informal enterprises while at the same time working for formal firms). This thesis makes contributions to the literature on both interorganizational relationships and the informal economy by overcoming the perennial problem of 'dualism' that is prevalent in the extant work. First, while the subject-object dualism bestows upon formal firms a heroic status such that they are conceptualized as rational actors forming interorganizational relationships, always on the basis of plans and goals, the current work argues that formal firms may participate in unexpected, yet lasting, ties, which requires ongoing situational responsiveness. Second, the structure-agency dualism projects the static image in which formal firms deliberately establish exploitative ties with structurally isolated informal enterprises, whereas the present study suggests that informal enterprises may exercise agency to proactively establish or dissolve connections with formal firms and to strengthen or weaken the relationships at their discretion. As such, dynamism figures prominently in the interorganizational relationships between formal firms and informal enterprises.
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Hecker, Paul Simon 1984. "Relações entre a economia informal e as políticas econômicas e sociais no Brasil = Relations between Brazilian economic and social policies and the informal economy." [s.n.], 2011. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/286040.
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Orientador: Marcelo Weishaupt ProniDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia
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Resumo: Economia informal é um conceito proposto pela Organização Internacional do Trabalho para estudar situações ocupacionais que combinam condições de trabalho precárias e remuneração baixa, o que geralmente contribui para a reprodução de desigualdades sociais e da pobreza. No Brasil, a informalidade é um problema crônico que abrange quase 50% da força de trabalho. As causas primárias dessa informalidade se encontram nas características do mercado de trabalho brasileiro, marcado por uma oferta estruturalmente excedente de mão-de-obra, que resulta em uma enorme parcela da força de trabalho submetida a uma inserção ocupacional muito vulnerável e sem acesso a um trabalho digno e proteção social. Partindo das formulações teóricas de Claus Offe e Gosta Esping-Andersen, pode-se afirmar que a informalidade do trabalho no Brasil decorre da insuficiência de políticas públicas capazes de superar a herança deixada pelo modelo de desenvolvimento excludente e de corrigir as distorções produzidas pelo funcionamento do mercado de trabalho. Três grandes linhas de ação política podem ser destacadas como requisitos para fornecer mais e melhores empregos e promover a inclusão social: (i) as políticas macroeconômicas, a política industrial e a política de desenvolvimento regional, que balizam a trajetória de crescimento econômico; (ii) a definição do arranjo institucional que regulamenta e fiscaliza o funcionamento do mercado de trabalho e as relações de emprego; e (iii) as políticas sociais que delimitam o acesso à proteção social e aos serviços sociais, reduzindo a dependência dos trabalhadores pobres em relação ao mercado de trabalho. A maioria daqueles que trabalham informalmente hoje em dia estão excluídos desses esquemas de proteção. A presente dissertação tem como objetivo examinar os efeitos mais visíveis das políticas econômicas, das políticas laborais e das políticas sociais do Governo Lula sobre a economia informal. O primeiro capítulo apresenta o referencial teórico que dá suporte ao estudo. O segundo capítulo esclarece como a informalidade se tornou um problema crônico no Brasil e procura dimensionar suas principais facetas no mercado de trabalho. O terceiro capítulo apresenta indicadores da evolução recente da economia brasileira e menciona as diretrizes das políticas macroeconômicas adotadas. O quarto capítulo focaliza as políticas de mercado de trabalho e as políticas sociais para a constituição da economia informal. Ao final, fica demonstrado que o crescimento econômico substantivo, a regulação mais eficiente do mercado de trabalho e o compromisso com políticas sociais dirigidas para os segmentos mais pobres da população reduziram a informalidade no mercado de trabalho brasileiro ao longo da década passada. Será concluído que crescimento econômico é uma condição necessária para a melhora do problema social da informalidade, mas sem mudanças na direção das políticas sociais e laborais, não é uma condição suficiente
Abstract: Informal economy is a concept proposed by the International Labour Organisation to study occupational situations that combine conditions of precarious work and low remuneration, what generally contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities and poverty. In Brazil, informality is a chronic problem that affects nearly 50% of the workforce. The primary causes of this informality are found in the characteristics of the Brazilian labour market, marked by a structural supply surplus of labour, which results in an enormous part of the workforce being submitted to a very vulnerable occupational insertion without access to decent work and social protection Departing from theoretical perspectives of Claus Offe and Gosta Esping-Andersen, it is affirmed that the informality of work in Brazil results from the insufficiency of public policies that are not able to overcome the heritage of the excluding development model and to correct the distortions produced by the labour market. Three great lines of political action can be emphasized as requirements for the provision of better employment and to improve social inclusion: (i) macroeconomic policies, industrial policies and the regional development policies that mark the trajectory of economic growth; (ii) the definition of the institutional arrangements that regulate and control the functioning of the labour market and the labour relations; and (iii) social policies that restrict the access to social protection and services, reducing the dependency of poor workers from the labour market. The majority of those who work informally today are excluded from these protections schemes. The present work will examine the most visible effects on the informal economy of economic policies and of the social and labour policies during the Lula-Government (2002-2010). The first chapter introduces the theoretical references that are used in the study. The second chapter shows how informality turned into a chronic problem in Brazil and tries to outline its principal labour market facets. The third chapter presents indicators of the recent evolution of the Brazilian economy and mentions the guidelines of the adopted macroeconomic policies. The fourth chapter focuses on the labour market and social policies and their role for the constitution of the informal economy. Finally it will be shown, how substantial economic growth, more effective regulation of the labour market and a commitment with social policies directed towards the poorest segments of the population reduced informality in the Brazilian labour market over the last decade. This will lead to the conclusion, that economic growth is a necessary condition for the improvement of the social problem informality, but without changes in the direction of social and labour policies, it is not a sufficient condition
Mestrado
Economia Social e do Trabalho
Mestre em Desenvolvimento Econômico
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Balsky, Tanya. "Efficient measurement of the informal economy in urban areas." CONNECT TO ELECTRONIC THESIS, 2007. http://dspace.wrlc.org/handle/1961/4169.
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McHugh-Russell, Liam Sean M. "Beyond protection: an informal economy perspective on labour law." Thesis, McGill University, 2014. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=121466.
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The large cohort of workers in the "informal economy" commonly described as lying "beyond the protection of labour law" represent a serious challenge (though not the only one) to the adequacy and legitimacy of labour law's normative tools and legitimating narratives. Drawing on a critical review of recent work at the ILO and by WIEGO (an international research-advocacy network focused on women in the informal economy), the thesis tries to provide insight into the nature of that challenge. The heterogeneity of informal work calls for prudence to avoid still-popular folk images rooted in the Fordist-era organization of work in the global North. Capturing that diversity instead requires "socio-economic" approaches attentive to the particulars of the networks of production that workers participate in, and the complex interaction between working practices and state regulation. Ultimately, however, providing a platform for workers to pursue their capabilities requires labour law to go beyond "protection" as a structuring discourse and embrace a broader normative horizon.Les travailleurs de l'«économie informelle» souvent décrit comme «au-delà de la protection du droit du travail» représentent un défi sérieux (mais pas le seul) qui menace la pertinence et la légitimité des instruments et discours normatifs du droit du travail. En utilisant une analyse critique des textes récents produits par l'OIT et par WIEGO (un réseau international de recherche et de plaidoyer centré sur les femmes dans l'économie informelle), cette thèse offre une perspective quant à la nature de ce défi. L'hétérogénéité du travail informel demande de la prudence, afin d'éviter de rester dans les images folkloriques ancrées dans l'ère du travail "Fordiste" des pays du Nord. La réponse à cette diversité exige plutôt un approche «socio-économique» non seulement attentifs aux particularités des réseaux de production dans lesquelles les travailleurs participent, mais aussi alerte aux interactions complexes entre les pratiques de travail concrètes et la réglementation de l'État. En fin de compte, cependant, afin de fournir aux travailleurs une plate-forme leur permettre de poursuivre leurs « capabilités », il faudrait que le droit du travail cherche au-delà de la «protection» pour ses discours de structuration, en adoptant un horizon normatif plus large.
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Lloyd, Ainsley Marie. "THE INFORMAL HOUSING ECONOMY IN CUBA: PROSPECTS FOR PRIVATIZATION." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/192536.
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Bühn, Andreas. "Informal Economic Activities." Doctoral thesis, Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden, 2010. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-39326.
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The dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” takes a comprehensive approach to the informal economy by studying traditional shadow economic activities, household DIY activities, and the smuggling of illegal and legal goods.
Chapter 2 analyzes shadow economic and DIY activities and presents a dual estimation for the development of both types of informal economic activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. It also considers the impact of German reunification on shadow economic and DIY activities and employs a proper estimate of domestic currency in circulation within Germany as an indicator variable for the shadow economy.
Chapter 3 studies an informal economic activity that has attracted much attention recently: legal goods smuggling, or the illegal trade of otherwise legal goods. The main channel of this type of smuggling is the falsification of trade documents. By reporting false amounts of exports and/or imports to authorities smugglers, or trade misinvoicers, seek to avoid paying taxes and/or tariffs.
Chapter 4 widens the analysis of smuggling to the smuggling of illegal goods and studies the smuggling of legal and illegal goods across the U.S.-Mexico border in order to improve the understanding of illegal trade. Studying the U.S.-Mexican case is particularly interesting as most illegal drugs and immigrants enter the United States via the Mexican border.
The empirical analyses in the dissertation “Informal Economic Activities” are based on structural equation models (SEMs). The results demonstrate that the informal economy is significant and that growth of the informal economy is not exclusive to developing countries, although it is a more serious problem in these countries. Moreover, although the informal economy covers a wide range of rather diverse economic activities, the dissertation works out that a few similarities exist. These are important, especially for policymakers, in first understanding what drives informal economic activities and second designing appropriate policies to deter them.
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Kahyalar, Neslihan. "Three empirical essays on the informal economy : the Turkish case." Thesis, Swansea University, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.678357.
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Adamu, Nenadi. "Young people and the informal economy : understanding their pathways and decision-making within the economy." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/621890.
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This is a study of a group of young people that explores their journeys into, and experiences within, the informal economy. Evidence has shown that young people have always been more disadvantaged in a context of high levels of unemployment, limited job opportunities and entitlement to welfare benefits. As an alternative to low paying jobs with poor working conditions, and in addition to strict conditions for claiming benefits, some young people are making the decision to engage in criminal ways of generating income. This study examines the experiences of twenty-six young people from Luton and Cambridge who had engaged in begging, drug dealing and sex work as alternative forms of ‘work’ in their transitions to adulthood. It explores the structural, cultural and biographical factors that influence their informal career decision-making processes, by drawing on Bourdieu’s social field theory. By examining the lived experiences of these young people, the study throws more light on the role of structure and personal agency in the decisions the young people made in engaging in the informal economy. These young people wanted to be seen as ‘normal’ young people. Most were hardworking, and ambitious, and their engagement in informal economic activities was often a ‘means to an end’. This study also identifies strategies that were employed by the young people for their successful navigating of the economy, and highlights the importance of elements like trust, respect and knowledge in their negotiations. It assesses how the issue of risk was managed with the help of what was seen to be an unwritten code of conduct in the field. The study also identified a hierarchy within the field, which was determined by the individual participants, depending on their personal perceptions and perspectives. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews, over a period of a year. The process of collecting data was long and difficult, highlighting the ethical and methodological challenges of conducting research with a ‘hidden’ population. The findings throw new light on the unique challenges young people face both in the formal job market, and in accessing welfare support, in light of the significant changes to social policy in the UK.
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Crawford, Seth. "The Political Economy of Medical Marijuana." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12986.
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This study aims to shed light on several vexing questions surrounding marijuana at various levels of analysis. Why have some states adopted medical laws when others have not, and what are the implications of these adoptions for elites at the federal level? Why are certain areas within states hotbeds of marijuana use and production? Why, in the face of serious penalties, do certain individuals continue to use, produce, and sell this particular drug? How is the marijuana market structured and how much economic impact does it have? Possible sociopolitical factors responsible for passage (or failure) of marijuana-related voter initiatives and legislation in states are examined and the process of policy diffusion occurring between states that adopt such measures is detailed. An analysis of geographic variations in medical cardholder rates in Oregon is conducted using longitudinal data. Using a Respondent-Driven Sample and a detailed survey of legal and illegal marijuana users in Oregon, I identify differences between the two groups, elucidate differences between marijuana users and the general population, and estimate the economic impact of marijuana on Oregon's informal economy. Overall, the study finds that innovative, Democratically dominated states tend to pass medical marijuana laws and are the most at risk of doing so in the future. Within Oregon, county-level participation in the medical marijuana program is associated with Democratic party members, unemployment rates, and timber harvest levels. The Oregon marijuana market consists of a robust network of small producers, with individual users primarily managing distribution of the drug. Economic estimates indicate that the legalization of marijuana could generate between $37 million and $153 million per year in taxes for the state. Finally, historical evidence suggests that legalization of this drug could lead to its control; however, doing so could structurally transition the market from a robust network of small producers into tight oligopolic control by a limited number of producers, thereby disenfranchising small, artisan growers, communities traditionally reliant on marijuana for revenue, consumers who seek variety, and the plant's genetic diversity.
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Bashe, Akhona Carol. "The formalization of the informal sector economy : Panacea or Chimera?" Diss., University of Pretoria, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23264.
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In 2011 author Robert Neuwirth identified the global informal sector economy as having a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that is equivalent to the second largest economy in the world behind the United States of America (USA).Studies have shown that the informal sector economy is prevalent in Africa and India which are both considered to be emerging market economies with potential for exponential growth. The GDP of a country is calculated using a total of a countries production of goods and services; however production in the informal sector economy is unaccounted for. The inclusion of their production could potentially boost the economic growth of these emerging market economies.This study aims to observe whether the informal sector economy should be formalized or left as it is in its current state. Despite the ‘problem statement’ in the previous paragraph, which appears to be in favour of formalization, there are advantages and disadvantages for both formalizing the informal sector economy and leaving it in its current state.The objective of this study is to come up with a sustainable strategy of how to manage and administer the informal sector economy as in its current state it is proving to be unsustainable.A two phased approach was used to produce the findings which included interviews with experts and interviews with entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector economy.These findings provided suitable recommendations to be made as to how to manage and administer the informal sector economy.Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012.
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
unrestricted
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Sampaio, José Filipe Leite. "A Economia Informal na perspectiva do IRS." Master's thesis, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/6591.
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Mestrado em Economia e Políticas PúblicasO presente trabalho tem como objetivos proceder a uma revisão da literatura sobre a economia informal, considerando a reflexão académica e teórica e a análise prática de documentos emanados por instituições e decisores políticos, delimitar o conceito de economia informal, salientando as dificuldades da sua exata quantificação, identificar as suas consequências na eficiência e na equidade e analisar a importância da economia informal em Portugal e na União Europeia. Este trabalho pretende ainda identificar as principais consequências da economia informal na eficiência e na função redistributiva do IRS, analisar a relação entre o nível e a abrangência da tributação, analisar a relação entre as taxas do IRS e o nível de tributação e identificar as políticas de combate à economia informal.
This paper aims to carry out a review of the literature on the informal economy considering the academic and theoretical reflection and practical analysis of documents issued by institutions and policy makers, defines the concept of the informal economy stressing the difficulties of its accurate quantification, to identify their effects on efficiency and equity, analyzes the importance of the informal economy in Portugal and in the European Union. This work also aims to identify the main consequences of the informal economy in the efficiency and redistributive function of the IRS, analyzes the relation between the level and scope of taxation, analyzes the relation between the rates of the IRS and the level of taxation, and identifies policies to takle informal economy.
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Ofori, Benjamin O. "The Urban Street Commons Problem: Spatial Regulation in the Urban Informal Economy." Ohio : Ohio University, 2007. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1180940316.
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Ishihara, Satoshi. "The informal economy of Kibera, Kenya : the study of the interplay between culture and political economy." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407917.
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Kim, Jundong. "The underground economy, political regimes, and economic growth : international evidence /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2001. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3025630.
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Monge, Zegarra Alvaro Germán. "The demand side of the shadow economy : essays on informal consumption." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2015. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/54511/.
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The focus of this thesis is the study of the demand side of the shadow economy. To achieve this, the informal consumption of Peruvian families located in urban areas is studied. This is possible thanks to a household survey collecting information on where people acquired their goods. The main contribution of the research is that it identifies an unexplored area in the literature with limited theoretical discussion and few empirical applications. Information about why people purchase from informal markets will supplement wider knowledge of labour allocation on informal opportunities. The thesis uses an Almost Ideal Demand System in order to verify some demand properties of informal consumption: income and price elasticities, the existence of linkages between working and purchasing decisions and explore the effects of bargaining on expenditure allocation. Four robust results are encountered. First, the inferiority of informal consumption is rejected. Formal and informal expenditure are classified as normal, but income responses on the latter (necessity) are lower than on the former (luxury). Second, there are linkage effects between working and purchasing in the informal and formal sectors. These effects are stronger for informal consumption and among the self-employed. Linkages are also not equally applicable across all goods. Better results are found within quasi-substitutes with leisure. Third, formal and informal food consumption reveals elastic demand curves and imperfect substitution between them, with higher compensated own-price and cross-price elasticities for formal markets. Fourth, household members bargain in their allocation decisions across markets, with females' decisions being closer to less-informal purchasing baskets. This result is clearer in the case of food consumption. Public policy recommendations based on these results are derived, where it is found that formalization policies will need to take into account their negative distributional effects.
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Thieme, Tatiana Adeline. "Trash and toilets : 'hustling' and the informal economy in Mathare, Kenya." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.619035.
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Balkin, Steven, Alfonso Morales, and Joseph Persky. "Utilizing the Informal Economy: The Case of Chicago's Maxwell Street Market." University of Arizona, Mexican American Studies and Research Center, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/219191.
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Rogers, Lesley A. "The role of the informal economy in community based economic development : the local exchange trading system example." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42008.
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The purpose of this thesis is to look at a non-conventional approach to increasing
well-being at the community level. This new approach to development is called
community-based economic development (CBED). Interest in CBED has been
stimulated both by crises at the local level and by global problems. In Canada the
impetus for CBED is attributable to three factors: the dependency of small
communities on external factors and the alienation it promotes; a globalizing
international economy; and the failure of past Canadian regional development
planning policies.
Community-based economic development is a new approach that seeks to increase
community self-reliance. Many different CBED initiatives are currently operating in
various regions, communities, and neighbourhoods across Canada. These CBED
initiatives have centred on stimulating local employment and income levels almost
exclusively within the formal "monetized" economy. This thesis examines a CBED
initiative that operates within the "non-monetized" informal sector called the Local
Exchange Trading System (LETS). LETS is a barter network that uses a local
currency, "green dollars", to facilitate trading between members.
To ascertain if the LETSystem can improve well-being at the local level, this thesis
has examined three Canadian LETSYstems: Victoria, Cowichan Valley, and Ottawa.
Three central goals of CBED were distilled: increased local control; implementation
of an integrated approach to development; and sustainable development. The three
LETSystems were then evaluated using the above goals.
There are two main findings of this thesis. The first finding is that CBED can be,
and presently is being, promoted in the informal sector. The second finding is that
the LETSystems three examined, pursued goals similar to those of other CBED
initiatives and sought to improve community well-being. The continued promotion of
CBED by LETS is subject to two constraints: the novelty of the idea; and the lack
of variety of goods and services traded. Nevertheless, there exists additional
opportunities for the increased promotion of CBED through LETS, increased
community development, and an expanded range of employment opportunities.Applied Science, Faculty of
Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of
Graduate
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Tika, Ali Abduallah. "The role of the informal economy in Libya's development: A case study of the informal food sector in Misrata." University of the Western Cape, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5852.
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Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Development Studies)In society, development had hitherto been mainly defined in relation to the pursuit and sustenance of balanced economic growth. Since the new millennium however, the essence of development has increasingly shifted beyond minimalist economic definitions, to include a balanced incorporation of social welfare focusing on core areas like health and education, and other issues like environmental sustainability. Also, linkages have been established between both aspects, such that for all countries, developed or developing, the success of economic policies is often influenced by and/or linked to the extent of social development. Still, priorities differ between developed and developing countries. While developed countries are more concerned with issues of global peace and national security, most developing countries focus on poverty eradication, job creation, universal access to quality education and improved health services. Libya’s vibrant informal economy has the potential to contribute to the country’s economic and national development efforts. The informal food sector, which is a part of the informal economy, can play an important role in this. Not only does the sector provide food to the poor at affordable prices, it also creates employment and business opportunities for a large number of people who otherwise would find it difficult to find employment, earn a living and secure theirs and their family’s livelihoods through income generated within the sector. Despite this, very few studies have been conducted to explore the nature and potential of the sector.
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Paviera, Carmelo. "Three studies on institutional entrepreneurship in the informal economy : a grounded theory approach." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31448.
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The informal economy represents a large segment of the economic activities in emerging economies but still remains a puzzling phenomenon. In particular, research emphasising the organising processes of firms within the informal economy is scant. Weak formal institutions, conflicting institutional centres and large levels of economic inequality contribute to the development of informal entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Yet, an understanding of the links between institutional incongruence and economic exclusion as facilitating mechanisms of informal entrepreneurship remains limited. Furthermore, it is unknown how hybrid organisations, combining institutional logics, emerge and function within the informal economy. Despite a large number of empirical and theoretical studies, there is a lack of understanding about the interplay between the institutional dynamics and the creation of informal institutions developed by informal entrepreneurs. To enhance the understanding of informal entrepreneurship, this PhD thesis explores how institutional entrepreneurs embedded in the informal economy respond to economic inequality. This grounded theory study, based on interviews and participant observations conducted at La Salada, South America's largest black market, conceptualises how institutional entrepreneurs exploit the illegitimacy of formal labour institutions to generate institutional change. This qualitative study has followed a constructivist grounded theory design based on simultaneous data collection and analysis and making systematic comparisons throughout inquiry. In line with grounded theory guidelines, the researcher identified emerging first-order categories and looked-for relations between them, in order to move to a higher level of theoretical abstraction with the aim of generating new theory. The researcher conducted 75 in-depth interviews and semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and made use of archival documents. The thesis is organised as three empirical studies which can be read independently, but together constitute an in-depth study of institutional entrepreneurship in the informal economy. The thesis's theoretical contributions to the field are as follows. The first study reveals the conditions that generated institutional change in the apparel value chain in response to prevailing conditions that were leading to increasing economic inequality. It presents a model that focuses on three social mechanisms which allow institutional entrepreneurs to build new institutions that were inclusive for large segments of society excluded by the formal sector. The second study explores the emergence of new forms of hybrid organisation in the informal economy. Particularly, it focuses on how informal entrepreneurs organisationally respond to institutional complexity by identifying two types of logic - community and market - and a meta-mechanism that facilitates the interaction between the two logics, named normalisation of deviant organisational practices. The study highlights the two key generative mechanisms of the logics at play and suggests that actors embedded in the informal economy are able to dynamically adapt to two types of logic. It also emphasises how informal entrepreneurs exploit institutional arbitrage, which refers to the circumstances where entrepreneurs are provided with opportunities to exploit differences between two dimensions of the institutional environment, formality and informality. The third study explores how various types of actors and organisations such as social movements or hybrid organisations are able to develop alternative institutional arrangements to overcome the liabilities of emerging economies' institutions in an informal context. The study reveals that informal entrepreneurs entering a polycentric system are able to establish norms and rules of interaction, to exploit brokerage opportunities and multivocality between contradictory networks, and through robust action, generate proto-institutional outcomes. Collectively, these three essays reveal novel knowledge about the organisational mechanisms behind informal economic activities, constituting a theoretical bridge between the fields of institutional theory, inequality and governance and providing fundamental insights for the development of new management theories.
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Shale, Moliehi Thuto. "Resilience and risk in the informal economy: a study in the regulation of flooding." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16925.
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Includes bibliographical referencesSmall scale business owners living and operating businesses in flood prone informal settlement areas are amongst the most vulnerable groups of society to climate change and associated risks. The state is unable to provide key goods and services in many of these areas of limited statehood. How these business owners respond to flood hazard in areas of limited statehood is of interest to this research. This research explores the governance processes in informal settlement areas in Cape Town, South Africa. A key concern in this study is what widespread informality means for the lived realities of the poor in environmentally vulnerable communities, particularly informal settlement areas. I explore the flood management strategies available in both the formal and informal sectors and how they are used by the small-scale business. Using a mixed method approach, in two informal settlement areas in Cape Town, I draw out and test factors for comparison with a focus on understanding the determinants of small business owners' choice and use of flood management strategy. The main literary contribution that this study makes is to demonstrate the ways in which civil associations in the informal sector built social capital that is then called upon at times of hazard. These civil associations help the business owners monetarily, but they also have inbuilt social capital which members exploit to respond to hazards other than the ones that the associations were created for. This way, small business owners can count on fellow community members in the face of adversity. I explore the ways that social capital is built in these associations, and how members are encouraged to contribute towards it and help others in times of need. This research helps our understanding of regulations outside of the state, and the governance role of non-state actors to respond to multiple hazards. By interrogating this governance issue in informal settlement areas and amongst low-income owners, I contribute to the growing literature on informality in African cities. The research makes an important contribution to research study whose framing of the state is empirically based, and therefore reflects the reality on the ground in many African cities. Much of the literature on governance in African studies had assumed the idea of a Westphalian state and interrogated the state, its functions and interaction the populace under this framing. Consequently, such research is unable to capture the real nature and governance capabilities of the state and raised more questions that it has been able to answer. Further, this framing of the governance role of the state in African cities obscures the role of non-state governance actors in both the formal and informal sectors. To this end, I conducted interviews with a total of 154 small business owners in Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa township and Victoria Mxenge informal settlement in Philippi township. The interviews elicited information on business owners' exposure to flooding, their response and the factors that influenced their choice to response mechanism. A survey was also conducted to get demographic data of the business owners in the research sites, other key government officials, academic researchers, and representatives of insurance companies in the formal market. Based on this survey data further variables that could influence the choice of flood management strategy were drawn and tested in further interviews. The findings of the research point to the usefulness of nonstate institutions in the response to flooding in poor communities. The social capital built in to civil associations and its availability to fellow members at times of adversity makes them an adaptive vehicle to respond to numerous other hazards other than the ones that they are intended for.
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Morales, Piñero Jesús Enrique. "Essays on Macroeconomic Theory: Technology Adoption, the Informal Economy, and Monetary Policy." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/4074.
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It is well known that cross-country diferences in income per worker are very large. For example, the average per-capita income of the richest ten percent of countries of the Penn World Tables in 1996 is about thirty times that of the poorest ten percent. Development accounting uses cross-country data on output and inputs to measure the relative contribution of diferences in factor quantities, and di?erences in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) or the efciency with which those factors are used, in explaining these vast diferences in income per worker. The consensus view in development accounting is that TFP is the most important factor in accounting for diferences in income per worker across countries (See, for example, Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare (1997), Prescott (1998), Hall and Jones (1999), Ferreira, Issler and de Abreu Pessa (2000), and Caselli (2004).) This suggests that in order to explain cross-country diferences in income per worker we need to understand why TFP difers across countries. An emergent literature addresses this issue and shows that cross-country di?erences in the institutional environment, in policies, or in human capital can cause large diferences in TFP. In particular, Acemoglu and Zilibotti (2001) emphasize the role of skill-mismatch. They argue that even if all countries have equal access to new technologies, the existence of technology-skill mismatch can lead to sizeable diferences in TFP and output per worker; Parente and Prescott (2000) and Herrendorf and Teixeira (2004) build the ories in which the protection of monopoly rights impedes the adoption of superior technologies; Rogerson and Restuccia (2004) argue that diferences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants may be a signi?cant factor in accounting for cross-country di?erences in output per capita; Erosa and Hidalgo (2005) propose a theory in which capital market imperfections are at the origin of cross-country TFP differences; and Kocherlakota (2001) shows that limited enforcement and high inequality are crucial to understand the existence of institutions leading to the ine?cient use of technologies.
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High, Mette Marie. "Dangerous fortunes : wealth and patriarchy in the Mongolian informal gold mining economy." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612381.
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Sarmistha, Uma. "Ties that bind : a study of the rural informal economy in India." Thesis, Manhattan, Kan. : Kansas State University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/1687.
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Iosifides, Theodoros. "Recent foreign immigration and the labour market in Athens." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.360526.
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This thesis presents a mainly empirical analysis of the phenomenon of recent immigration to the Athens conurbation and of the relationship of foreign workers to the Athenian lahour market. The research focuses on three of the main groups of foreign migrant workers from Third World and Eastern European countries: Albanians, Egyptians and Filipinos. After an analysis of the nature and characteristics of the Greek economy and labour market the research is built around three major topics: the differentiation of migrant groups within the context of Greek labour market segmentation; the relation between immigration and the informal, underground economy; and the impact of immigration on the spatial and social division of labour in Athens. Methodologically, the main effort of the study was a field survey of recent immigrants in Athens, undertaken over a period of seven months hetween August 1995 and February 1996. The first three chapters of the thesis contain the theoretical hackground to the empirical research. Chapter 4 contains a detailed presentation of methodological tools and approaches adopted during the field research in Athens. Chapter 5 presents the general background and profile data of 141 immigrants interviewed, including such variables as age, sex, time and means of arrival, education and training, reasons for migrating to Greece, family circumstances, remittance behaviour, and plans for the future. Chapter 6 is an extended discussion of the interactions between immigrants and the Athens labour market, based partly on a detailed analysis of the city's economy and social formation, and pattly on interview results. Chapter 7 looks more closely at the day-to-day lives of the immigrants in Athens, focusing in particular on their housing arrangements and their impact on the social geography of the city. Finally Chapter 8 concludes the thesis. It shows how the empirical findings to the different research questions are related to each other and how these findings are related to past and contemporary theories of migration. The strengths and weaknesses of the research are evaluated and suggestions for further research made.
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Jones, Daniel Edward. "Power of the informal : smallholder charcoal production in Mozambique." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/23654.
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The charcoal market in Africa is an informal economy. This enables millions of people to earn a living producing, selling and trading charcoal, due to low barriers to market entry. However, research and policy on charcoal has long focused on the downsides of informality. Informal charcoal production is commonly linked to criminality, an undermining of social cohesion, poor working conditions and most of all, forest loss. These negative perspectives continue to shape our approaches to charcoal markets, despite a recent reframing of charcoal as a potential sustainable development opportunity. This thesis aims to provide an alternative perspective. I argue that by focusing on the negative aspects of charcoal production, in particular forest loss, we end up misdiagnosing the problems and excluding stakeholders. The focus on forest loss has obscured research on the role of charcoal in rural livelihoods and has led to research that is primarily interested in large-scale production providing charcoal to major urban areas. This means small-scale charcoal production has been comparatively neglected in academic research, despite its importance for rural livelihoods and overall charcoal supply. Through three empirical chapters, I provide perspectives on small-scale charcoal production, its role in rural livelihoods and some of the factors that shape this role. I strive to provide novel analytical insights by moving away from questions of charcoal’s environmental impact and towards an approach that situates charcoal within the politics of rural livelihoods. I explore these ideas using case studies from Mozambique and a mixed methods approach. The results show small-scale charcoal production is a flexible form of income, primarily used as a livelihood diversification strategy. Furthermore, charcoal production is closely linked to the agricultural practices of producers. This means that conventional theoretical approaches to forest loss that treat charcoal production as distinct from agricultural practice may misinterpret the role of charcoal production in deforestation and forest degradation. I then move on to look at approaches to charcoal market formalisation in Mozambique. The results show that the regulations, whilst shaped by a variety of processes, concentrate on governing charcoal as an environmental problem. Changes to forest management requirements within the regulations have done little to improve sustainability as they are incapable of reaching out to small producers, in part due to inherent barriers within the formalisation process - stringent forest management plans and a conceptualisation of charcoal as a full-time, professional livelihood. The picture of charcoal production that emerges from the thesis is one of a flexible cash-income generating strategy, complicated by the politics of forest loss and livelihoods at local and national levels. The results show that charcoal plays a vital role in rural economies, not only in spite of its informality, but because of it. I argue throughout the thesis that small-scale charcoal production should be seen as a livelihood strategy to be nurtured rather than neglected and marginalised. The research questions whether the formalisation and modernisation of charcoal markets can engage small producers and concludes that in order to allow charcoal livelihoods to flourish and to improve sustainability, interventions need to work with, and for, charcoal as an informal economy.
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Chivangue, Andes Adriano. "Mukhero em Moçambique : Análise das Lógicas e Práticas do Comércio Informal." Master's thesis, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/4620.
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Mestrado Desenvolvimento e Cooperação InternacionalA presente dissertação analisa as lógicas e práticas dos agentes informais em Moçambique, concretamente as dos micro-importadores vulgarmente conhecidos por mukheristas. O estudo é feito com base em dois pressupostos teóricos, designadamente: a racionalidade diversa apresentado por Hugon (1999, 2000) e a teoria da acção fundamentada (theory of reasoned action) de Fishbein e Ajzen (2010). A questão central do trabalho é: que percepções de riqueza e de pobreza decorrem da prática do mukhero} Para responder a este problema recorre-se tanto aos resultados de um inquérito administrado para o efeito como a diversa bibliografia que versa sobre o assunto.
Barros, Carlos Pestana
The present dissertation analyzes the logics and practices of the informal operators in Mozambique, specifically the micro-importers commonly known as mukheristas. The study is supported by two theoretical frameworks, namely: rationality diverse, proposed by Hugon (1999, 2000) and the theory of reasoned action, presented by Fishbein and Ajzen (2010). The main core question of this works is: which perceptions of wealthy and poverty can be found on those who perform mukhero? To answer this problem we use not only the results from a survey held for this purpose but also bibliography about the subject.
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Tuc, Mis Sine. "Informal Sector Wage Gap In Turkey." Master's thesis, METU, 2011. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613741/index.pdf.
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Informality has been a widespread fact in most of developing countries. Especially after the implementation of liberalization policies in the 1980s, informal sector has expanded, and informal employment has been more attractive in the Turkish economy. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether there is wage gap between formal and informal employment in Turkey for the years 2007 and 2008. In order to test if the determinants of wages are different, selection corrected wage equations are estimated for manufacturing and service sectors for men and women separately by using the Household Labor Force Survey micro level data of TURKSTAT. We also estimated Multinomial Logit model in order to be able to take the sector selection process into account. According to our estimation results, there was a significant wage gap between formal and informal employment in Turkey for the years 2007 and 2008, even after controlling for a number of individual-specific characteristics. This indicates the existence of the segmented labor market in terms of wages in Turkey, as it is asserted by the number of researchers arguing against the neo-classical labor market theory.
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Sakai, Roberta Yoshie. "A ocupação da área central pelo comércio ambulante: negociações e produção do espaço urbano." Universidade de São Paulo, 2011. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/18/18142/tde-27082012-163631/.
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Através do estudo do trabalho ambulante regularizado, a pesquisa discute as transformações na área central influenciadas pela espacialização dos circuitos de produtos que compõem o denominado \"comércio popular\". Cada circuito aciona uma rede de relações específicas, as quais podem existir na mais absoluta legalidade ou estarem ligadas ao contrabando, pirataria e falsificação. O mercado de produtos cuja oferta é criminalizada movimenta outro que transaciona \"mercadorias políticas\" - negociações de caráter político transformadas em valores monetários - tanto no âmbito das normas comerciais, quanto das que regulamentam a apropriação do território. A hipótese é que as negociações observadas no comércio ambulante constituem formas de gestão dos espaços da área central, as quais são compartilhadas entre o Poder Público e outros agentes. Por continuamente transitarem nas liminaridades do ilegal, ilícito e informal; elas caracterizam o território como uma \"zona de indeterminação\" entre o direito e o não-direito, a lei e a norma, o juízo e o arbítrio. Aborda-se a questão tendo como referência o caso de Campinas, cidade sede de uma região metropolitana localizada no interior do estado de São Paulo. A organização dos trabalhadores em ocupações nos espaços públicos - realizada pela Prefeitura desde os anos 1980 - resultou na construção de um imaginário sobre a atividade, no qual tem papel fundamental a negociação monetária da licença de uso. Para compreensão deste processo, foram analisadas especificamente as políticas de regulamentação adotadas de 2001 a 2004, período em que a regularização de novos espaços perpassou o debate sobre os sentidos da revitalização do centro. Os desdobramentos dessas políticas, captados nas falas dos entrevistados de 2005 a 2010, ajudaram a montar um quadro das negociações e a identificar a complexificação da população que vive da atividade. A convivência nas áreas regularizadas entre as dimensões clássicas e as reconfigurações do trabalho ambulante - provenientes do atual papel que a informalidade ocupa nos processos de acumulação - abre novas questões para a análise do chamado centro \"degradado\" e \"decadente\", locus do comércio popular.Through the study of the regularized street trading, the research discusses the transformations in the central area influenced by the spatialization of products circuits that constitute the known \"popular trade\". Each circuit triggers a network of specific relationships which can exist in the strictest legality or be linked to smuggling, piracy and counterfeiting. The market of products whose bid is criminalized moves other which transacts \"political commodities\" - political negotiations converted into monetary values - both in the context of trade rules, as those which regulate the appropriation of the territory. The hypothesis is that the negotiations observed in the spaces of street trading constitute a form of downtown\'s territory management, which is shared between Public Power and other agents. By continually transiting in illegal\'s liminality, illicit and informal, they characterize the territory as a \"zone of indeterminacy\" between right and rightless, law and norm, judge and will. It is addressed taking Campinas as a reference, a regional metropolis located within the state of Sao Paulo. The organization of workers in public territory occupations - held by the Prefecture since the 1980s -resulted in the construction of an ideal about the activity, in which the license\'s monetary negotiation plays a key role. To understand this process, the regulatory policies adopted from 2001 to 2004 are analyzed specifically, during which the regularization of new territories pervaded the debate on the meanings of downtown\'s revitalization. The consequences of these policies, as captured in the words of those interviewed from 2005 to 2010, helped to set up a negotiating framework and to identify the complexification of the population which does this activity for a living. The living in the regularized areas between classical dimension and the reconfiguration of street trading from the current informality role in the process of accumulation opens new questions for analyzing the \"degraded\" and \"decadent\" downtown, locus of the popular trade.
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Navarrete-Hernández, Pablo. "From survival to social mobility : supporting the informal economy in Santiago de Chile." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3643/.
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The informal economy represents two-thirds of worldwide employment (OECD 2009) and contributes more than 40% of global GDP (Schneider et al. 2010). It is an especially significant feature of urban labour markets in the Global South, having been a persistent phenomenon in all regions, and expanding in the wake of economic growth in Latin America and Asia in recent decades (OECD 2009). Governmental policies toward the informal economy have taken various forms based on several theoretical approaches (Chen et al. 2001, WIEGO 2014). These range from repressive policies that perceive informal entrepreneurship as a drag on economic growth and poverty reduction, to those promoting their legalisation to foster economic development and others encouraging informal workers’ organisation to resist capitalist forms of exploitation. More recently, strongly supportive municipal initiatives have been put in place to increase informal productivity. This study aims to understand the rationality behind, and the impact and limitations of this emerging supportive policy approach aimed at improving the livelihoods of informal entrepreneurs. It analyses these practices using a mixed-methods approach (ethnography complemented with statistical analysis), on the basis of primary data drawn from 97 face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions, together with a randomised questionnaire survey of 906 workers conducted with the collaboration of a team of field assistants across three informal subsectors in Santiago de Chile: waste-pickers, street vendors and home-based enterprises. In light of the evidence, I argue that granting informal entrepreneurs the right to succeed through municipal support effectively promotes the social and economic inclusion of vulnerable populations. Municipal policy support, in the form of training, capitalisation, access to markets and organisation, can be key to speeding up the growth of enterprises otherwise condemned to stagnation or limited expansion. As part and parcel of this argument, I contend that supporting informal entrepreneurs is vital in a situation in which informal entrepreneurship typically becomes a ‘one way street’ in the absence of decent employment alternatives in the lower tiers of the formal economy. My thesis also suggests that understanding formal-informal linkages can benefit from a selective amalgamation of divergent theoretical approaches, as these two markets operate both in integration (as per structuralist and legalist perspectives), a structure commonly described as exploitative, and separately in a parallel network of informal enterprises (as per dualist perspectives), described as a fairer alternative for informal enterprises to trade products. In light of my findings, I offer concrete suggestions for further improving the nature of municipal policies and the necessity for higher-level supportive approaches to fully unlock the informal economy’s potential.
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Smith, Marquin E. "Social justice vulnerabilities and marginalised communities: A case study of day labourers in Mbekweni." University of Western Cape, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7686.
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Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW)Poverty remains one of the greatest challenges that Southern African countries face. The state of poverty in a region is reflected in low levels of income, as well as high levels of unemployment and human deprivation. Day labouring has become evidence of the high unemployment rate in South Africa. In South Africa, the day labour market serves as a catchment area for the fallout from a formal economy, unable to provide employment to those who need it. Often, day labourers are socially excluded from the benefits of modern society, such as, access to appropriate social services, work opportunities, and a decent income. This could be perceived as social justice vulnerabilities.
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Timm, Suzall. "Modalities of regulation In the informal economy: a study of waste collectors in Cape Town." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16789.
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Includes bibliographical referencesA large amount of people in South Africa earn their living from recycling waste on landfills or the streets in cities across the country. Much is written about those operating on landfills, although a few studies focus on those operating on the streets. The latter studies largely focus on the socio-economic conditions and collective organising capacity of these informal sector workers, and their relationships with other actors. Although, these studies provide a useful resource for understanding the nature of their work and the contexts in which it emerges, very little is known about how their work is regulated. With this in mind, this thesis asks the following research question; how are informal activities regulated in the city? Drawing on the idea of non-humans as actors (in Actor Network Theory terms) this thesis argues that informal activities are regulated by hybrid modes of regulation that include human/non-human and formal and informal assemblages. The research was conducted between 2008 and 2014. It made use of qualitative methodologies and approaches, i.e. semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis, as methods of data collection. The findings of the research reveal that informal activities are regulated in the followings ways. Firstly, it shows that objects such as trolleys, carthorses, bakkies and storage facilities are regulators that actively enabled or constrained informal waste activities. Secondly, the findings suggest that these nonhumans play an active role in organising the spaces where informal waste activities are carried out. Finally, the findings show that these nonhumans also play an active role in how informal waste collectors build alliances through assembling hybrid collectives of humans and non-humans in order to mobilise resources. The main finding in this study is that regulation in the urban informal economy is constituted by human/non-human and formal/informal assemblages. Including the non-human in the analysis of regulation in the urban informal economy is important because it contributes to a better understanding of regulation in the urban informal economy. It does so by highlighting that regulation in the urban informal economy is not only based on human social relations consisting of rules, norms, and institutions but is constitutive of assemblages that involve all actors (both human and non-humans).
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Duncan, Charleen Lucille. "Townships to CBD: The project of ten informal traders in the formal economy of Cape Town, Western Cape." University of the Western Cape, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7261.
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Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)The Quarterly Labour Force survey by Statistics South Africa (2019) portrays a very bleak future for the South African economy and labour force. The unemployment rate is 27.6% and youth unemployment stands at 55.2%. The National Development Plan (NDP) recognises the relevance of the informal sector and the value that it will contribute to the economy and to solving the challenges of unemployment in South Africa. The NDP projects that the informal sector, which includes domestic work, will create between 1,2 and 2 million new jobs by 2030. Few studies have been conducted on informal trading projects. This study explores the case of a ‗transitional‘ informal enterprise support project aimed at micro-enterprise development wherein 10 informal traders in Cape Town took occupancy of provincial government-sponsored kiosks on 9 May 2016. The Long Street kiosks (LSK) offer 10 traders per year a unique trading opportunity in the CBD free of rent and service charges for a period of one year, with access to a unique and potentially large market. The purpose of this study is to critically examine the role played in the informal enterprise development project by the Western Cape provincial government through its project manager, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT). This research attempts to investigate aspects of project design such as the selection criteria of the informal traders for the project, and selected results such as whether the project provided the traders with enough market exposure to the formal economy and whether their businesses were improved by participation in the project. The qualitative research approach was used for this study of the LSK project, which was a single case study, as both a unit of analysis and as a research method. The study involved a combination of two approaches, namely desktop research followed by interviews and focus group sessions. The study found that a number of limitations and shortcomings in the conduct of the project impacted on the mixed results and success achieved, pertaining to selection criteria, lack of financial and other resources, training, market-related problems, skill set limitations as well as environmental factors such as transport. The study nevertheless cast useful light on potential changes and recommendations that could enhance the project going forward and provides new insights on the complex relationship between the informal and formal economies and their relative potential for addressing the challenges of employment and economic growth.
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Kockel, Ulrich. "Political economy, everyday culture and change : a case study of informal economy and regional development in the West of Ireland." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.303140.
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Young, Graeme William. "Informal vending and the state in Kampala, Uganda." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274999.
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This thesis examines how the agency of informal vendors in Kampala, Uganda, is shaped by the state. It argues that efforts by the President and the NRM to monopolize political power have dramatically restricted the agency of informal street and market vendors, forcing them to adapt to changing political circumstances in ways that have limited their ability to participate in urban development and economic life. This argument is presented through two examples of how expanding political control has led to a contraction of vendors’ agency. The first of these describes how the early decentralization and democratization reforms introduced by the NRM allowed street vendors to take advantage of competition between newly elected and empowered politicians to remain on the city’s streets, and how the central government’s subsequent recentralization and de-democratization of political power in Kampala has led to the repression of street vending while closing the channels of influence that vendors previously enjoyed. The second explores how efforts by the central government to undermine the opposition-led local government allowed market vendors to successfully oppose an unpopular market privatization initiative, and how both the President and the new city government have since been able to take advantage of disputes within markets for their own purposes while vendors have been largely unable to realize their market management and development ambitions. Both examples detail the causes, forms and implications of the ruling party’s monopolization of political power and explore how vendors have responded to their changing political circumstances, highlighting how these efforts face significant obstacles due to the increasingly restrictive environment in which vendors are forced to act. This thesis shows that the agency of informal vendors—while always manifest in certain ways—is constantly and increasingly constrained as the President and the ruling party tighten their grip on power. As their political exclusion precipitates a broader exclusion from urban development and economic life, informal vendors are forced to contend with a situation of increasing marginalization and vulnerability that they are largely unable to improve.
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Akiyode, Akolade. "Spaces of the informal economy : reimagining street trading through accessibility distribution analyses in Lagos." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2017. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/109875/.
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Street traders operate in and around spaces that facilitate optimal interactions with potential customers - a distribution pattern which coincides with the busiest and most central parts of a city. In Lagos, street trading is ubiquitous and its appropriation of public space is contentious for spatial governance. Attempts at regulation exacerbate the precarious status of street traders and are mostly unsuccessful, and this is due to the limited understanding of the spatiality of street trading. The locations where street trading thrives are thus investigated in this thesis to unravel what aspects of spatiality creates the milieu that encourages their activities - an area of research that has received little attention in recent years. The aim is to contribute to the discourse on inclusive urban practices and policies in developing country cities. In literature, the determinants of street traders workplace locations are referenced to externalities from locational centrality and potent human activity (Dewar and Watson 1990; Monnet et al. 2007; Skinner 2008b; Skinner 2008a; Dobson et al. 2009). However, this body of work has not employed a systematic analysis in the study of such locations. This gap in research is addressed by using a novel methodological framework known as ‘Spatial Design Network Analysis for Street-Based Enterprises’ (sDNA-sBEL), which combines the systematic analyses of multi-scale network accessibility distribution with morphological properties of urban form. As a principle of sDNA-sBEL, open-source data and freeware applications were used to ensure replicability and accessibility to a broader audience. The sDNA-sBEL analyses identified that the most prolific street trading locations in Lagos have high values of macro-scale betweenness – spaces traversed most frequently while Lagosians take the shortest routes for long distance (inter-city) vehicular journeys. However, other compositional spatial factors must coincide with macro-scale betweenness to sustain street trading.
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Costa, Marisa Lúcia da. "Pobreza e resiliência: contributo para o estudo sobre os efeitos do trabalho das Zungueiras de Benguela na economia familiar." Master's thesis, Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/12776.
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Dissertação de Mestrado em Estudos AfricanosA zunga é o exercício de venda ambulante informal que em África no geral, é desempenhada maioritariamente por mulheres, apesar de existirem também homens e crianças no exercício da mesma. Em Angola o empobrecimento de muitas famílias, afeta diretamente as mulheres uma vez que são elas por regra e tradição as responsáveis pela gestão da casa e pelos cuidados familiares. Como resposta à pobreza as mulheres inventam mecanismos de sobrevivência de onde ressaltam os negócios informais, que são no fundo espelho das suas competência e capacidade para amenizar a precaridade das condições económicas das suas famílias. Esta dissertação visa estudar questões que se articulam entre a pobreza das famílias e a resiliência das zungueiras de Benguela. É nosso objetivo demonstrar como as zungueiras, apesar de tantas dificuldades por que passam, lidam com as situações de carência económica, enfrentando, de cabeça erguida, um mundo de problemas e zungando pela “sobrevivência familiar” onde as preocupações com os filhos ocupam papel de destaque. Mediante entrevistas e observações feitas no terreno procurámos compreender como a zunga as auxilia na melhoria da situação das suas famílias, mas também procurámos estudar as suas rotinas, os seus êxitos, os insucessos, no fundo a sua resiliência.
Zunga is the exercise of informal vending that in Africa in general is performed mostly by women, although there are also men and children in pursuit of it. In Angola the impoverishment of many families, directly affects women as they are, by rule and tradition, responsible their home and family care. In response to poverty women invent survival mechanisms such as informal businesses, which reflects their competence and ability to deal with the precarious economic conditions of their families. This thesis aims to study issues that are articulated between the poverty of families and resilience of zungueiras in Benguela. We aim to demonstrate how zungueiras (women sellers), despite the difficulties they experience, deal with situations of economic hardship facing a world of trouble and fighting for their "family survival" namely their children. Through interviews and observations made on the field we tried to understand how zunga activities assists in improve the situation of a great number of families, but we also tried to observe the sellers routines, their successes, failures, their resilience.
N/A
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Nóbrega, Ricardo André Avelar da. "Os limites da flexibilização e informalidade na produção e trabalho contemporâneos: imigração laboral boliviana e a indústria de vestuário de São Paulo." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2013. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=8649.
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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoA migração laboral de bolivianos para São Paulo é um processo intrinsecamente relacionado aos planos de ajuste estrutural ocorridos na Bolívia e no Brasil na segunda metade dos anos 1980 e no início da década de 1990, respectivamente. Para a Bolívia, o Decreto 21.060 implicou a privatização de mineradoras e conseqüentes demissões em massa, além de uma abertura econômica que favoreceu migrações internas para as regiões cocaleiras e para as periferias das grandes cidades. Posteriormente, esses migrantes e seus familiares se destinaram a países limítrofes como Argentina e Brasil. Destaca-se nesse contexto a localidade de El Alto, origem de grande parte dos imigrantes que se destinaram a São Paulo. Do lado brasileiro, houve também uma abertura econômica que foi prejudicial a amplos setores da indústria, como a cadeia têxtil-vestuário. Para reduzir os custos de produção e aumentar sua competitividade em relação às mercadorias asiáticas, a indústria de vestuário se reestruturou defensivamente e subcontratou grande parte de sua produção material às oficinas informais que empregam imigrantes bolivianos geralmente jovens, indocumentados e com baixa qualificação profissional. Nessa pesquisa, relacionamos esse fluxo populacional às transformações estruturais ocorridas nos dois países, destacando as mudanças nas relações de trabalho decorrentes do processo de reestruturação produtiva. Também abordamos as redes de solidariedade desses imigrantes e os meios pelos quais estes vêm revertendo uma inserção na sociedade de destino em que predominam condições precárias de trabalho e habitação, além de uma instabilidade permanente decorrente da irregularidade documental que atinge grande parte desses trabalhadores.
The Bolivian immigration to São Paulo is related to the structural adjustment plans which took place in both countries. In Bolivia, the State mines were privatized, meaning the loss of approximately thirty thousand jobs. The open trade policy was also harmful to familiar agriculture and both policies were followed by the migration to coca zones, the outskirts of the biggest cities and other countries, like Argentina and Brazil. In this context, the population of the city of El Alto located in the outskirts of La Paz - grew steeply and became the origin of most of the immigrants that travelled to São Paulo. On the Brazilian side, the trade-opening was harmful to many industrial sectors and led to their productive restructuring. That was the case of the garment sector which, to reduce its costs, outsourced the production to the sweatshops where the Bolivians work. These immigrants are mostly poor, undocumented and have low education level. In this research, we also relate this population flow to the structural transformations in these two countries, like the changes in the labor relations that occurred due to the productive restructuring processes. We also address the solidarity networks of these immigrants and the means by which they are improving their conditions on the destination society, where precarious work and habitation conditions prevail as well as a permanent instability as result of the irregular documentation for a expressive part of these workers.
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Phalane, Manthiba Mary. "Gender, structural adjustment and informal economy sector trade in Africa : A case study of women workers in the informal sector of North West Province, South Africa." Thesis, University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/608.
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Thesis (Ph.D. (Sociology)) --University of Limpopo, 2009The thesis, Gender, Structural Adjustment and Informal Economy Sector Trade in Africa: A Case Study of Women Workers in the Informal Sector of North West Province, South Africa, comprises of five chapters{PRIVATE } CHAPTER 1 is mainly introductory and deals specifically with the general orientation of the study as outlined in the background and problem statement. This chapter presents the motivation for the study, main aim and objectives and the significance of the study. It also deals with methodology and attendant problems. The chapter also addresses stages of research such as research design, population and sampling, data collection techniques, data analysis of this study. Finally the limitations of the study are outlined. CHAPTER 2 comprises the literature background for the study. The literature focuses largely on the theoretical orientation of the study and on the position of women in the economy. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part is more general in the sense that it focuses on theorising gender using the gender approach to make a substantive argument. It also focuses on the different definitions of the informal economy sector and the impact of economic reform measures on women in the informal economy sector. This first part further argues the predominance of women in the informal economy sector. Attention in the literature is also focused on women’s employment opportunities in the informal sector and on the marginalization of women through economic reform measures introduced. Such reform measures have been advanced by government means to improve the economy. The second part attempts to illuminate some characteristics of informal work in South Africa. The unit of analysis here is women and their employment or underemployment in the economy. CHAPTER 3 focuses on the effects of macro-economic reform policies on women in the informal economy sector. This chapter discusses the current neo-liberal economic reforms (i.e. Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs); Growth Employment and Redistribution-GEAR) that have been imposed by governments all over Africa and beyond in areas such as Latin America and Asia. The chapter also indicates the negative effects of these on the poor (women in particular) and on why economic reforms have hit women hardest in the mainstream economy and in the informal sector. As a concluding argument and points raised, the chapter argues for alternative policy approaches that could be used as references to means of improving the lot of operators in the informal economy sector, especially with regard to women. The point raised in this chapter is that legislation alone does not change attitudes, traditions, trade relations and power relations. Thus, alternatives from a female perspective are outlined here to position the situation of women in terms of accessing resources in terms of the policy climate in South Africa in particular economically. From this perspective one can understand whether or not there is adequate protection and promotion of women’s rights in the economy. CHAPTER 4 consists of the empirical data for the study. The findings of the study from fieldwork on the impact of neo-liberal GEAR on women in the informal economy sector is reported, analyzed and relevant interpretations are made. The findings in this study are presented as raw totals and in percentages, where useful cross-tabulations are carried out to reflect the relevant data, which influenced the findings.Qualitative data analysis method is used to analyse data from in-depth interviews, audio and visual recordings. The data is coded and variables and their relationships are generated using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Key words and phrases are categorised and underlined for the possibility of salient themes and summaries and possible explanatory statements are made. CHAPTER 5 gives a summary of the findings of the study and the implications thereof. A comparative survey of these findings and those discussed in the literature in chapter 2 is made. Finally, a conclusive statement is made and suggestions and recommendations for improving the informal economy sector as a valuable economic entity for women. The conclusion is that the informal economy sector does help to meet the needs of the general low income population while maintaining women’s economic activities to support their families. Thus, change on the thinking and application of socio- economic policies should start by fully refuting the more male oriented economic ideology premise on which current policy approach is based.
Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA)