Download or read book The Long Shadow of Informality written by Franziska Ohnsorge and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2022-02-09 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A large percentage of workers and firms operate in the informal economy, outside the line of sight of governments in emerging market and developing economies. This may hold back the recovery in these economies from the deep recessions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic--unless governments adopt a broad set of policies to address the challenges of widespread informality. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery and for long-term development. It finds that pervasive informality is associated with significantly weaker economic outcomes--including lower government resources to combat recessions, lower per capita incomes, greater poverty, less financial development, and weaker investment and productivity.

Download or read book COVID 19 and the Informality driven Recovery The Case of Colombia s Labor Market written by Jorge Alvarez and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-09-17 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper documents the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns on the Colombian labor market using household micro-data. About a quarter of employment was temporarily disrupted at the height of the first pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020. Women, the young, and the less educated were the most affected groups. Since then, a remarkable recovery, led by a rebound in informal employment, has taken place. By adjusting both employment levels and hours faster, the informal sector acted as an important margin of adjustment, particularly in those industries most affected by the first lockdown. The informal sector also appears to have played a role in decreasing the sensitivity of aggregate employment to more recent lockdowns in 2021, as the economy has learned to cope with pandemic restrictions, although the possibility of higher informality rates becoming embedded remains an substantial downside risk for long-term productivity.

Download or read book India s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic written by Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sudden announcement was made by the government on 24 March 2020 of a complete lockdown of the country, due to the spectre of Coronavirus. India’s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic was being written as the crisis was unfolding with no end in sight. Migrant workers from different parts of India had no choice but to trek back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home. How did caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate in this governmental strategy to cope with a virus epidemic? The eight papers in this collection, highlight the ethical and political implications of the epidemic—particularly for India’s migrant workers. What were the forces of power at play in this war against the epidemic? What measures could have been taken and need to be taken now? Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Download or read book Informality Revisited written by William Francis Maloney and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author develops a view of the informal sector in developing countries primarily as an unregulated micro-entrepreneurial sector and not as a disadvantaged residual of segmented labor markets. Drawing on recent work from Latin America, he offers alternative explanations for many of the characteristics of the informal sector customarily regarded as evidence of its inferiority.

Download or read book Pan India Stories of Informal Workers During Covid 19 Pandemic written by Deepanshu Mohan and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2024-06-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to delve into the application of feminist ethnography by engaging with the lived experiences of vulnerable workers, occupied by India’s informal workforce, across its deeply stratified labour-market landscape. Set up and organized in a diverse spatial trajectory through identified case studies from across India, the book, in a post pandemic context, aims to study, critically reflect on the vulnerable state of India’s workforce, capturing the daily emergencies, livelihood of marginalized communities. Case studies in the book feature the pandemic-crisis narratives of farmers, fisherfolk, factory workers, artisans, small scale entertainment providers, sanitation, and waste workers, to name a few. By understanding the intersectional dimensions of social structures like caste, gender, and class our case studies in the book also attempt to unpack the ‘dualities’ present in the contemporary understanding of India’s labour market. Reflective discussions with field ethnographers through first-person narratives help documenting their own observations from different case studies, while focusing on interactions on how to work through power dynamics and varied positionalities across dynamic field sites marked with different spatial characteristics. The text is primarily aimed at students and peer scholars of development studies, or for those who interested in learning about the application of ethnographic methods to studying/understanding the governing dynamics of informality across India and South Asia.

Download or read book The Informal Economy Revisited written by Martha Chen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Download or read book Gendered Perspectives on Covid 19 Recovery in Africa written by Ogechi Adeola and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-03 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the political, social, and economic connections between gender and the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors offer innovative ideas for recovery that will build a more prosperous, healthy, equitable, and sustainable future for African women and girls, targets identified under Goal 5 (Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment) of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals slated to be achieved by 2030. Within this context, authors identify issues related to the protection of women and girls from poverty, hunger, and gender-based violence; improved healthcare and healthcare workforce experiences; girl-child education; financial inclusion; and entrepreneurship opportunities for women in fintech, tourism, and information, communication and technology (ICT). The book concludes with a discussion of economic empowerment for women that focuses on normalising the ‘un-normal’ outcome of the pandemic. The book will be of value to policymakers, non-profit organisations, practitioners, and scholars who understand the importance of gender equality and women empowerment in the African continent.

Download or read book Informality Labour Mobility and Precariousness written by Abel Polese and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the erosion of state legitimacy in Lebanon to the use of smartphones in Kyrgyzstan, from a Polish suburb to the music scene in Azerbaijan, this volume attempts to explain why, in a variety of world regions, a substantial number of people tend to ignore or act against state rules. We propose to look at informality beyond simplistic associations of the phenomenon with a single category such as "informal labour" or "corruption". By doing this, we propose to look for a correlation between the emergence, and persistence, of some informal practices and the quality of governance in a given area. We also suggest that a better understanding of the variety of informal practices present in a region can help conceptualising more adequate interventions and eventually improve the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants.

Download or read book Distributional Impacts of COVID 19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region written by Johannes G. Hoogeveen and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-12-20 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: COVID-19 is one of multiple crises to have hit the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the decade following the Arab Spring. War, oil price declines, economic slowdowns, and now a pandemic are tearing at the social fabric of a region characterized by high rates of unemployment, high levels of informality, and low annual economic growth. The economic costs of the pandemic are estimated at about US$227 billion, and fiscal support packages across MENA are averaging 2.7 percent of GDP, putting pressure on already weak fiscal balances and making a quick recovery challenging. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, MENA was the only region in the world experiencing increases in poverty and declines in life satisfaction. Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region investigates how COVID-19 changed the welfare of individuals and households in the region. It does so by relying on phone surveys implemented across the region and complements these with microsimulation exercises to assess the impact of COVID-19 on jobs, income, poverty, and inequality. The two approaches complement and corroborate each other's results, thereby making the findings more robust and richer. This report's results show that, in the short run, poverty rates in MENA will increase significantly and inequality will widen. A group of 'new poor' is likely to emerge that may have difficulty recovering from the economic consequences of COVID-19. The report adds value by analyzing newly gathered primary data, along with projections based on newly modeled micro- and macrosimulations, and by identifying key issues that policy makers should focus on to enable a quick, inclusive, and sustained economic recovery.

Download or read book COVID 19 and the Informal Economy written by Martha Chen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. A key challenge for the post-COVID global economy is whether the disproportionate impact of the crisis on informal workers, who form the majority of the world's workforce, will be acknowledged. Or whether harmful and negative stereotypes will persist. Today, despite the role of these essential frontline workers - producing, processing, selling, cooking and delivering food, providing cleaning, childcare, eldercare, healthcare, transport, waste removal, and other essential services - many observers consider the informal economy to be non-compliant (resisting registration and taxation) and associate it with low productivity (a drag on the economy) or with crime (illegal activities) and grime (blight on modern cities). Yet, most informal workers are working poor trying to earn an honest living in often hostile environments. Most suffered severe declines in work and earnings during successive waves of the COVID pandemic, and related restrictions and recessions, and have gone deeper into debt and depleted their savings and assets in order to survive. This book explores and informs answers to that key challenge. It presents findings on the impact of the COVID crisis on informal workers in Asia, Africa, and North and Latin America. The chapters of the volume analyse the impact of the COVID crisis on informal workers, interrogate whether and which economic recovery plans and schemes include informal workers, and explore what a more inclusive economic recovery and reforms might look like.

Download or read book COVID 19 and International Development written by Elissaios Papyrakis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-13 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current coronavirus pandemic fundamentally reshapes existing debates and processes in international development. The unprecedented (and rapidly evolving) crisis is generating a number of substantial challenges for developing economies. Governments in low-income nations often find it extremely hard to cope with the increased demand for health services, make prompt decisions and put them into action, protect vulnerable segments of society and offer immediate relief to affected economic sectors. This book provides a series of reflective chapters that demonstrate how several areas of international development have been severely affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. It provides an in-depth critical discussion on how the current pandemic influences several development outcomes (in the domains of poverty/inequality, health, education, migration, formal/informal employment, (de)globalisation, the extractive sector, climate change, water and the global financial system). Each chapter draws policy recommendations on relevant interventions that can alleviate the identified negative repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for the most vulnerable communities in the Global South.

Download or read book A Tale of Africa Today written by Pierre Nguimkeu and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), more than 80 percent of workers find their livelihoods in the informal sector. They are artisans and shop owners, fishers and divers, tailors and weavers, truck drivers and market sellers, among many other informal jobs. In the era of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, saving lives and protecting livelihoods are both deeply challenging in SSA countries with high informality and almost no social protection. Informal workers and their families are most vulnerable to the disease, as they toil in crowded bazaars and busy streets. Moreover, informal workers are typically poor and cannot stockpile food or cash for a long lockdown. Strict containment measures directly jeopardize their income, their livelihoods, and their lives. The analysis confirms that higher rates of informal employment (as a fraction of total employment) are associated with higher rates of COVID-19 infection or disease spread. Not surprisingly, countries with relatively larger populations are also more likely to experience higher rates of infection. Given the adverse socioeconomic effects of COVID-19 containment on informal businesses and workers lacking social protection, countries should take proactive steps to curb the spread of infections, treat affected people, and at the same time provide social safety nets and economic relief for informal workers and businesses.

Download or read book Good Jobs Bad Jobs No Jobs written by Tony Avirgan and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Informality Development and the Business Cycle in North Africa written by Mr. Roberto Cardarelli and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: North African economies are characterized by a significant share of informal activity and employment. About two-thirds of workers in North Africa operate without any formal arrangement and social protection, and about 30 percent of GDP is estimated to be produced by informal workers and firms. This paper finds that while a few key structural characteristics could explain “normal” informality in North Africa, policy distortions explain a large share of excess informality. Among the structural factors that can lead to high informality, the relatively lower level of human capital and younger population help explain the high informality in the region, as low-skilled and young people generally find it more difficult to operate in the formal sector. At the same time, gaps in a set of policy indicators also explain the relatively high informality in North Africa. In particular, this paper finds that gaps in the quality of governance explain about half of the excess informality experienced in North Africa compared with advanced economies. In this context, the expansion of the informal sector in Algeria and Tunisia from the mid-2000s partially reflects the deterioration in a few indicators of their governance and regulatory frameworks. In contrast, the decline in informality observed in Egypt, Mauritania, and Morocco over this period also reflects improved business regulations, governance, and tax systems, in addition to continued progress in economic development. While informality has traditionally buffered regional labor markets against the impact of recessions, the COVID-19 crisis has been different. North African economies have generally exhibited relatively stable unemployment rates, including during recessions, largely owing to their high levels of informality. However, informal employment has fallen significantly in North Africa during the pandemic, as lockdown measures have particularly affected high-informality service sectors. As the pandemic subsides and the lockdown measures are removed, the recovery of regional labor markets could exhibit a stronger-than-usual rebound of informal employment. Ensuring an inclusive recovery from the pandemic would call for renewed efforts to construct more modern (digitalized), more efficient, and fairer systems of social protection, building on the progress achieved in the region during the pandemic in extending safety nets to informal workers.

Download or read book Social Protection for Informal Workers in Asia written by Sri Wening Handayani and published by Asian Development Bank. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication examines the need to expand social protection coverage of the informal sector to support working age productivity, reduce vulnerability, and improve economic opportunity. Case studies from Bangladesh, the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand offer suggestions to close social protection gaps and recommend policy solutions to create equitable and inclusive social protection programs for informal workers.

Download or read book Informality Labor Market Dynamics and Business Cycles in North Africa written by Olivier Bizimana and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2023-09-08 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employment informality is widespread across North Africa. This paper aims to shed light on the role played by the informal sector in labor market adjustments over the business cycle. It finds that the response of labor markets to output fluctuations is more muted in countries with higher informality levels, like the North African economies. The analysis also confirms that informal employment is countercyclical and acts as a buffer during economic downturns in countries with relatively higher informality. However, contrary to what took place in past recessions, informal employment contracted sharply during the 2020 pandemic recession in high informality economies, suggesting that it did not play its traditional countercyclical role. By contrast, employment informality tends to fall modestly or increase during economic upturns, including the post-pandemic recovery. This finding presages the persistence of a large informal sector in the post-covid era in medium- and high-informality countries.

Download or read book Public Sector Debt Statistics written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global financial crisis of recent years and the associated large fiscal deficits and debt levels that have impacted many countries underscores the importance of reliable and timely government statistics and, more broadly, public sector debt as a critical element in countries fiscal and external sustainability. Public Sector Debt Statistics is the first international guide of its kind, and its primary objectives are to improve the quality and timeliness of key debt statistics and promote a convergence of recording practices to foster international comparability and as a reference for national compilers and users for compiling and disseminating these data. Like other statistical guides published by the IMF, this one was prepared in consultation with countries and international agencies, including the nine organizations of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Finance Statistics (TFFS). The guide's preparation was based on the broad range of experience of our institutions and benefitted from consultation with national compilers of government finance and public sector debt statistics. The guide's concepts are harmonized with those of the System of National Accounts (2008) and the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, Sixth Edition.