Informal employment in Poland: an empirical spatial analysis

Abstract

The main goal of our article is to bridge the gap in the regional analysis of informal employment in Poland and in particular to indicate the propensity for informal work in the working age population, to test if informal activities are typical for marginalized people (less educated, unemployed, older) and to identify the regional and spatial heterogeneity in the propensity. We use data from the 'Human Capital Balance 2010-2014' survey. Results indicate a strong relationship between the probability of informal work and age, sex and labour force status. Moreover, a strong spatial dependency can be observed.

The Effects of Immigration on Labour Tax Avoidance: An Empirical Spatial Analysis

“…In addition, Beręsewicz and Nikulin (2018) find that an increase in the share of long-term unemployed in sub-regions in Poland is associated with a higher probability that people from these sub-regions will be working informally.…”

“…In this regard, two contrasting perspectives on the socio-economic and spatial variations in UDW are prevalent in the literature, namely the marginalization and reinforcement theories. Specifically, the dominant marginalisation theory holds that informal work mostly involves low-paid, insecure, unregulated and low-qualified jobs carried out by spatially and socio-economically marginalized people with fewer opportunities in the labour market, including immigrants and less affluent population groups, to cope with poverty (Beręsewicz & Nikulin, 2018;Williams & Horodnic, 2015b, 2015c. In this line, previous studies find that marginalized and low skilled immigrants are more likely to be underemployed in the informal economy of the host countries especially in low skilled labour intensive industries (Bohn & Owens, 2012;Theodore et al, 2018;Venkatesh & Fiola, 2006).…”

Informal Employment and Wages in Poland

“…While trying to assess the wage gap between informal and formal workers, one needs to address the problem of possible selection into informal employment. Previous studies for Poland show that informal workers are indeed different from their formal sector counterparts -undeclared work is more common among men (Beręsewicz and Nikulin, 2018), low-skilled individuals, those working in small or micro firms, as well as in the construction, agriculture, or trade sector (Cichocki and Tyrowicz, 2011). Thus, the raw wage gap may result -at least to some extent -from the fact that formal and informal workers are different in terms of various observable and unobservable characteristics.…”

Informal–formal workers' transition in Nigeria: A livelihood analysis

“…In many African countries, especially in Nigeria, not only is the informal sector large, it is also a major absorber of labour (Folawewo 2013;Jerome 1996;Medina et al 2017). The size of the sector is also growing across European countries (Adame and Tuesta 2017;Beręsewicz and Nikulin 2018). As indicated by the International Labour Organization (ILO 2018), on average about 60 per cent of informal employment in Africa is within the informal sector.…”