The Negative Influence of Labor Informality on Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

<p>This paper explores the relationship between informal employment and the subjective well-being of informal employees and self-employed workers in Mexico. The main hypothesis is that labor informality has a significantly negative impact on the level of self-reported life satisfaction and happiness of individuals. This effect is sustained even when controlling for potentially determinant socio-demographic factors, in particular income. The module of self-reported well-being (BIARE) that was part of the National Household Spending Survey (ENGASTO), conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) during the first quarter of 2012 was used for this research. The module gathered, for the first time in Mexico, official statistics on life satisfaction and happiness. The results of the investigation show that informal employment is by itself a factor comparable to income in its influence on the perceived well-being of individuals.</p>

How does informal employment affect health and health equity? Emerging gaps in research from a scoping review and modified e-Delphi survey

“…The negative impact of informal employment on the subjective well-being of individuals is empirically corroborated by studies in Colombia [ 40 ], Mexico [ 38 ], and Central American countries [ 51 ]. Most notably, Lopez-Ruiz, Artazcoz [ 51 ] used a multidimensional measurement of informal employment, including absence of an employment contract, lack of social security coverage, or employment status, and found that not having social security coverage is the strongest predictor of poor subjective health and mental health for informal workers in both women and men.…”

“…Diverse types of informal workers were studied in LMICs, including waste workers [ 16 – 21 ], trash pickers [ 22 ], clay artisans [ 23 ], taxi drivers [ 24 ], artisanal and small-scale gold miners [ 25 ], informal commerce workers [ 26 ], female beer promoters [ 27 ], domestic workers [ 28 ], informal fisheries [ 29 ], and informal workers in the construction and manufacturing industry [ 30 – 37 ]. The remaining micro-level studies were conducted in LMICs [ 38 – 43 ] and HIC contexts [ 9 ], rather than focusing on a specific type of informal workers, and analyzed survey data or injury reports to examine the difference in health outcomes between workers in informal and formal employment.…”

Violence in the Household and Happiness in Mexico

“…The BIARE sample consists of 10,654 people over 18 years old, representing 70.78 million Mexicans. Despite this survey being relatively recent, some studies have used the data provided by the survey (Hernández García and Tomé González ; Temkin ).…”

Subjective well-being of the informal workers: an empirical study from Hooghly district of West Bengal, India

“…The existing literature on welfare of informal workers is mainly concentrated on studies with respect to specific occupations (Blaauw et al, 2013;Markussen et al, 2018) as well as specific problems like financial inclusion and social security (Hu and Stewart, 2009), working conditions (Kantor et al, 2006), skill and productivity (Sanghi and Sensarma, 2014) etc. Studies on informal workers using the concept of subjective well-being have mainly focused on analysing the effect of informality on well-being through comparison between formal and informal workers (Rojas, 2013;Jütting et al, 2007;Temkin, 2016;Cassar, 2010). Outcomes of these studies are not unanimous and often suggest a parallel strong existence of informal economy with its mixed effects on well-being.…”