Problematizing the “informal sector”: 50 years of critique, clarification, qualification, and more critique

Abstract

Since its coining in 1971, the concept of the "informal sector" has been used to draw scholarly, political, and philanthropic attention to hundreds of millions of workers who lack basic labor protections. But as the term proliferated, so too did its detractors. Critics claim that the label of "informal" homogenizes the world's poor and distorts understandings of the sources of and solutions to their economic woes. What are the origins of the concept's contradictory nature? What strategies have scholars used to increase the likelihood that it will be used to illuminate and uplift, rather than to distort and denigrate? This article analyzes how scholars have resignified and retheorized the informal economy in response to five conceptual challenges: stigmatization, definitional fuzziness, homogenization, an either/or fallacy, and the presumption of "formalization" as the solution. Such efforts have preserved the concept's analytic potency and political relevance. In the longer term, however, a true testament to the concept's value would be if it outlives its own utility; that is, if it mobilizes enough recognition and resources to the invisibilized majority of the world's workers that scholars and state bureaucrats no longer feel the need to lump them together under a misleading catchall label.

Sustainable Development Ensued by Social Capital Impacts on Food Insecurity: The Case of Kibera, Nairobi

“…Fourth, this survey has triggered the interest and curiosity of the informal sector worldwide and its role in enhancing food security and employment opportunities in the food system among the very low-income groups. The informal economy could be considered as comprised of all forms of 'informal employment'-that is, employment without labour or social protection-both inside and outside informal enterprises, including both self-employment in small unregistered enterprises and wage employment in unprotected jobs [48]. However, this is only one of several existing definitions of the informal economy.…”

Work and Demand Making: Productionist and Consumptionist Politics in Latin America

“…In the first—which has generally become the consensus among labor scholars (Rosaldo et al, 2012)—“informal work” is defined as work that is not regulated in that workers do not enjoy state protections as afforded by labor law, lack contracts, and/or are not enrolled in social security (Baker & Velasco-Guachalla, 2018; Castells & Portes, 1989; Hussmans, 2004; Tardanico, 1997). In the second, scholars use the term “informal” to refer to the condition of marginality, precarity, and/or insecurity, (Rosaldo, 2021). Studies in this tradition do not focus on the nature of work per se, but variously emphasize poverty, labor market uncertainty, and powerlessness (Ruiz-Restrepo & Barnes, 2010; Swider, 2016).…”

“…2For a discussion and history of the concept, see Peattie (1987), WIEGO (2020), Godfrey (2011), Rosaldo (2021), and Rosaldo et al (2012).…”

The Social Reproduction of Pandemic Surplus Populations and Global Development Narratives on Inequality and Informal Labour

“…Whilst indicating the need to re‐centre the study of inequality on its existential nature and to stress the key role played by labour in regenerating it, the social reproduction analysis of the pandemic and its surplus populations developed here also provides insights into labour informality. In a world where labour informality has become the norm rather than the exception, some have questioned the explicatory relevance of this term (Rosaldo, 2021). Yet, the recognition of the life‐sustaining role labour informality played during the pandemic — both in its articulation with ‘essential work’ and the making of surplus populations — opens the way to novel theoretical and policy directions.…”