Labor Informality and Poverty in Latin America. The case of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru

MAURIZIO, ROXANA

The informal economy around the world: the state of the art and main challenges

Agence Française du Développement (IRD)

Lugar: Paris; Año: 2011;

The analysis of labor informality is very relevant in Latin America. More than half of the workers in the region are employed in informal activities, mainly as own-account workers or wage earners in small enterprises. A similar percentage of people work in jobs non-registered in the social security system. The aim of this paper is to analyze two important aspects related to informality from a comparative point of view. The first one is the association among informality, labor precariousness and income segmentation. The second one is the relationship between informality and poverty. In order to conduct this study, four countries –Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru- whose informal sectors and informal employment are significantly different from each other were selected. Data used in this paper comes from household surveys with the most recent available information.