Labor Divides, Informality, and Regulation: The Public Opinion on Labor Law in Latin America

Abstract

While scholarship on the politics of labor market divides and labor law in Latin America has bloomed in recent years, this literature rarely looks at the role of public opinion. Using data on public attitudes towards labor law for 18 Latin American countries, we start filling this gap. We follow the literature on labor market divides to see how far those at the margins of the formal labor market differ in their opinions from the formally employed. We find that large segments of the people perceive labor law as protective for workers, but there are also important divides: Whereas formal sector workers indeed assess the protective function of labor law positively, informal sector workers are more sceptical. Moreover, we find feedback effects of labor law on these differences of opinion. We conclude with a discussion how these divides in attitudes also have political effects, especially on voting behavior.

Labor Informality and Economic Political Accountability of Executive Incumbents in Latin America

“…Future works could test the proposed mechanisms. This work importantly contributes to the small but expanding literature that seeks to identify how labor informality affects individuals' political preferences, attitudes, and behaviors in Latin America (Altamirano, 2019;Baker & Velasco-Guachalla, 2018;Berens, 2015Berens, , 2020Berens & Kemmerling, 2019). However, future efforts are vital.…”

“…Some of these works find that informal workers are not different from formal workers regarding their political engagement, ideology, support for noncontributory social programs (Baker & Velasco-Guachalla, 2018), or preferences for redistribution (Berens, 2015). However, informal workers in Latin America are more skeptical about labor laws' protective capacity and less likely to vote than their formal counterparts (Berens & Kemmerling, 2019). Additionally, evidence suggests that informal workers' inherent state of uncertainty and vulnerability has caused an erosion of the linkages between these workers and political parties across the Latin American region (Altamirano, 2019).…”

The role of social movements in the ‘second incorporation’ of popular sectors in Bolivia and Argentina

“…Analyses of socio-structural determinants of electoral choices in the aftermath of the 'Pink Tide' offer promising, and still insufficiently explored, research avenues (see Berens & Kemmerling, 2019). From a normative point of view, such analyses could shed more light on the deficiencies of the socioeconomic models (and on their long-lasting, multiple heritages) implemented by left-wing populist experiences, by following the broad literature (e.g., Gudynas, 2009;Svampa, 2015;Brand et al, 2016) over the consequences of such forms of 'redistributive extractivism' that, in most cases, became an 'easier path' to avoid to challenge deeper structural bases of social inequality.…”

Opting for Exit: Informalization, Social Policy Discontent, and Lack of Good Governance

“…However, as Levy (2008) shows for the Mexican case, noncontributory welfare benefits can also provide an incentive to work informally, because one can simply take both-nontaxed earnings and the welfare benefit. But formal work comes not only with better access to welfare programs but also with protection through labor law (Berens and Kemmerling, 2019), so that improvements in social assistance can still be an incentive to formal work.…”