Exploring Online and Offline Informal Work: Findings from the Enterprising and Informal Work Activities (EIWA) Survey

Abstract

The growing prevalence of alternative work arrangements has accelerated with the rapidly evolving digital platform transformations in local and global markets (Kenny and Zysman, 2015 and. Although traditional (offline) informal paid work has always been a part of the labor sector (BLS-Contingent Worker Survey, 2005; GAO, 2015 and Katz and Krueger, 2016), the rise of online enabled paid work activities requires new approaches to measure this growing trend (Farrell and Greig, 2016;Gray et al, 2016;Sundararajan, 2016 andSchor, 2015). In the fourth quarter of 2015, the Federal Reserve Board conducted a nationally representative survey of adults 18 and older to track online and offline income-generating activities as well as their employment status during the six months prior to the surveys. Survey results indicate that 36 percent of respondents undertook informal paid work activities either as a complement to or as a substitute for more traditional and formal work arrangements. We explore the rationale behind respondents' participation in alternative work arrangements by setting questions that capture participant motives and attitudes towards informal offline and online paid work activities. Sixtyfive percent of qualified survey respondents indicate that a main reason for participating in informal work is to earn extra income.

Are Older Nontraditional Workers Able to Find Health and Retirement Coverage?

“…temporary employment agencies, contract firm work, direct-selling to consumers, part-time work, and small business ownership. Under this more expansive definition, the share of workers in nontraditional arrangements is as high as 30 percent (Robles and McGee 2016) or even 40 percent (U.S. Government Accountability Office 2015) of workers.…”

“…Meanwhile, social scientists have focused increasingly on "alternative work arrangements," such as independent contracting, on-call work, or working in temporary employment agencies Krueger 2016, 2019;Jackson, Looney, and Ramnath 2017;Abraham et al 2018;Farrell and Greig 2016;Robles and McGee 2016;Collins et al 2019;Rutledge, Wettstein, and King 2019;and Munnell, Sanzenbacher, and Walters 2019). While the types of workers included in this category vary greatly across studies, their common denominator is best expressed in what they lack: health and retirement benefits.…”

The future of work: how G20 countries can leverage digital-industrial innovations into stronger highquality jobs growth

“…The increase is equivalent to the entire net rise in employment over that period. On a broader definition, the Fed Board's Enterprising and Informal Work Activity Survey (EIWA) finds that over one third of the U.S. adult population relied on informal paid work as a complement or substitute for traditional work arrangements (Robles and McGee 2016). The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that 20-30% of the working age population in both the U.S. and Europe engages in "independent work", defined as work with a high degree of autonomy, based on a short-term relationship, and compensated by task, assignment or sales ).…”

Probing for Informal Work Activity

“…This is something that several recent surveys have attempted to measure. Robles and McGee (2016) carried out during 2015 asked whether respondents were "currently engaged" in informal paid activity or side jobs, exclusive of selling property, renting property or responding to surveys (Bracha and Burke 2019). This was found to be the case for 21% of adults age 21 and older categorized as employed, 25% percent of those categorized as unemployed and 12% of those categorized as out of the labor force based on the CPS employment questions.…”