Transitions between informal and formal jobs in India: Patterns, correlates, and consequences

Abstract

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project Transforming informal work and livelihoods.

Informal employment or informal firms? Regulatory enforcement and the transformation of the informal sector

“…This criticism applies especially strongly when speaking of workers. As Natarajan et al (2020) point out, it is by no means the case that workers are 'locked into' working in one sector or another. 18 The model presented here does not speak directly to this phenomenon, but an extension might incorporate a measure of the extent to which different sectors are populated by self-employed workers vs wage workers (for example, in the provision of food preparation and delivery) to draw the implications of regulatory changes on the inter-sectoral mobility of labour.…”

Urban Exclusion: Rethinking Social Protection in the Wake of the Pandemic in India

“…Informal sector workers deserve particular attention since they lack access to social security benefits or unemployment insurance and have limited healthcare access, making them the most vulnerable to the shock (Sen, 2020). within both the informal and the formal labour markets in India, and can be seen in the form of either self-employment, operating with or without the contributing household helpers or wage employment (ILO, 2003;Kanbur, 2017;Natarajan et al, 2020;Sinha & Kanbur, 2012).…”

Informality and work status

“…Doing this is important for its own sake in understanding the extent of fixity or mobility between these categories, hence the subtitle of Danquah et al's (2019) Africa study 'Dead End or Steppingstone?'. Very recent papers by Danquah et al (2019) and Raj et al (2020) study transitions between the six work statuses. We will learn a great deal more from the current UNU-WIDER project country studies now in preparation.…”