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Informal entrepreneurship challenges sustainable economic performance and is a barrier to productive entrepreneurship. In this context, the level of development of formal and informal institutions and their impact on informal entrepreneurship is crucial. This chapter examines the informal sector entrepreneurship in Kosovo using institutional theory lenses. Using a survey with 500 owners/managers of private companies, the study finds that the service industry has the highest participation in the informal economy compared to other sectors. On average small firms, compared to larger ones, report a higher percentage of unreported incomes. Our findings also suggest that when informal entrepreneurs perceive penalties for tax avoidance from tax authorities as high, they tend to have higher compliance with reporting their income. In addition, our findings indicate that the higher the vertical (trust in formal institutions) and horizontal distrust (trust in business partners), the higher the involvement in the informal economy. The chapter concludes with some policy implications for tackling the informal economy in Kosovo and similar institutional contexts.

Purpose – This chapter illustrates how an economic sociology of work exposes the deeply embedded nature of the informal economy and the social and political lives of its growing mass of unprotected workers under globalization. In particular, the premises of economic sociology offer a comprehensive definition of the informal economy that I term, “relational.” In contrast to definitions based on modernization and neoliberal assumptions of isolated economies, relational definitions of the informal economy expose the structures, networks, and political institutions that intertwine informal workers with the formal economy, society, and the state. Operationalizing the relational definition in labor surveys ensures the inclusion of previously invisible informal workers, especially those who operate at the intersection of the informal and formal economy. As well, it ensures the collection of data on the precise ways in which informal workers are socially and politically embedded, including their collective action efforts, the meaning they attach to their labor, and the social networks that determine their life chances.

Methodology – To illustrate this point, I apply a relational definition of informal labor to the case of India, using the National Sample Survey on Employment and Unemployment, as well as findings from interviews with organized informal workers.

Findings – By doing so, I provide an internationally comparative measure of India's informal workforce, illustrate informal workers’ social conditions relative to those of formal workers, highlight the expansion of the informal workforce since the government enacted liberalization reforms, and expose the unique political action strategies Indian informal workers are launching against the state.

Implications/Originality – These findings help us understand Indian informal workers in an internationally comparative context, yielding empirical insights on their social conditions and political organizations for the first time. As well, they call for an important refinement to existing definitions of the informal economy that to date have relied only on Latin American and African experiences.

In this chapter, we aim to illustrate some of the forms taken by informal employment in the global south and how these can best be understood by adopting a wider analytical lens than has been applied in much of the precarious employment literature. We draw on the findings of a recent study of the working conditions of urban informal workers from 10 cities in the global south. The study consisted of focus groups (15 in each city) conducted through the framework of a participatory informal economy appraisal as well as a survey of 1,957 home-based workers, street vendors, and waste pickers. Our findings illustrate a number of ways in which these three groups of informal workers are embedded within the formal economy. While they are not engaged in wage employment, they play subordinate roles to both formal sector firms within global production networks and unequal production relations and to the state through, inter alia, constrained access to public spaces and regulation. In order to interpret these findings, we apply Agarwala’s (2009) “relational” lens to demonstrate how risks and costs are transferred to workers who constitute the “real economy” in much of the global south. Given the often disguised connections between informal employment and the formal economy, this approach also provides a bridge to understanding precarious working conditions and the effects of globalization outside of the industrialized north.

This chapter evaluates the cross-national variations in the proportion of employment that is in informal sector enterprises and evaluates competing theories which view these cross-national variations to result from either economic underdevelopment (modernisation explanation), high taxes, public sector corruption and over-regulation of work and welfare (neo-liberal explanation) or conversely, a lack of intervention in the realm of social protection (political economy explanation).

To evaluate these competing explanations, the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) country surveys that investigate the scale of employment in informal sector enterprise in 43 developing and transition economies, along with the World Bank database of development indicators, are analysed here.

The finding is that lower levels of employment in informal sector enterprises are closely associated with economic development, lower levels of public sector corruption and state intervention in the form of higher tax rates and social transfers to protect workers from poverty.

This chapter reveals the need to move beyond treating these contrasting representations as competing explanations and to recognise how all are required to more fully explain the prevalence of informal sector entrepreneurship.

Tackling employment in informal sector enterprise is shown to require broader economic and social policies associated with the modernisation of economies, tax rates, social protection and poverty alleviation.

One of the first evaluations of the competing explanations for why some countries have higher levels of employment in informal sector enterprises.

By synthesizing case studies on the informal economy throughout the world, I show that women and men specialize in different tasks, work in separate settings, and have differing access to positions of economic power in the informal economy. Moreover, women are more likely than their male counterparts to seek employment in the informal sector. I also explore why gender segregation is such a marked feature of the informal economy by examining characteristics of the informal sector that encourage such gender segregation including the relationship between the informal and formal economies and the social status of informal work.

This study examines the social and economic experiences of female food vendors in the informal economy in urban Ghana using a particularized analysis to challenge prevailing opinions that women working in the informal economy inevitably experience social oppression and economic marginalization.

Synthesizing data from ethnographic field observation of female street food vendors in urban Ghana with past ethnographic research, this study focuses on the cultural, historical, political, social, and economic particularities of the Ghanaian context to understand the experience of female urban street food vendors.

Ghanaian women working in informal food vending in urban environments in the Southern regions of Ghana experience a myriad of social and economic benefits including: strong social support networks, access to entrepreneurial skills and startup capital; heightened social status, resulting from loyal customers and community recognition; empowerment through financial autonomy; as well as pride in providing economic resources for children. These social and economic experiences serve as counterevidence to the dominant perspective that women in the informal economy experience social oppression and economic marginalization.

This research contributes qualitative data regarding the social and economic support systems established by women in the informal food economy in Ghana. Furthermore, it emphasizes that development agencies and policymakers understand the importance of these contextual dynamics in developing policies aimed at the informal economy.

The spread of COVID-19 has shaken people’s lives around the globe in an extraordinary way, threatening health, disrupting economic activity, and spreading fear and anxiety. However, the outbreak originated as a public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has also developed into a global economic crisis, with severe and potentially lasting impacts on employment and trade. The chapter investigates the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era. In this study, one of the biggest but overlooked stakeholders of the street economy, municipality’s perception through the constables regarding the street vendors will be investigated. It is known that the worldwide epidemic of COVID has caused such problems as layoffs, depreciation of money, the global crisis, foreign trade coming to a halt, and, thus, it reduces individuals’ purchasing power. Therefore, it is considered that the number of individuals who are parties to the street economy has increased. This research aims to understand and discuss how COVID-19 has been affected to the street economy from the point of view of the constables, who are one of the most important stakeholders of the issue. A qualitative depth interviews were conducted to the constables of İzmir Municipality in Turkey. A semi-structured interview questions were applied and the data were analysed with the NVIVO program to understand the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era in Turkey. The research aims to support and guide the local authorities with fresh data from the field regarding the changing characteristics of street economy.

Among the various global options for self-employment, venturing into the micro-enterprise sector has been recognized as an important way for employment generation and poverty alleviation in many developing/emerging economies. In this context, women-owned businesses at the grassroots play a vital role in developing countries like India far beyond contributing to job creation and economic growth. The informal sector is a sizeable and expanding feature of the contemporary global economy.

However, the informal economy operates at the cusp of the institutional framework, which makes them susceptible to many risks like lack of formal financing options, legal aid or increasing margin through access to formal markets. Non-Profit Development Agencies (NPDAs) have emerged as a viable and essential middle ground support in promoting women entrepreneurship in their capacity to contribute beyond governmental institutions.

The study adopted an inductive qualitative option through a case study design to explore the approaches adopted by NPDAs in promoting micro-entrepreneurship among women at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in the urban informal sector in India. The findings suggest that the NPDAs created an impact through the services, which translated into monetary earnings for the entrepreneurs. They could make financial contributions to their families, which boosted their self-confidence and overall personality. The findings also indicate positive changes like increased self-confidence, self-dependence, and inner strength as reported by the entrepreneurs.

Job finding and separation are not well studied in economies with high labor informality. In this chapter, we contribute to filling the gap in the literature of labor turnover, proposing a methodology to estimate both indicators in an economy with high informality. To this end, we estimate indicators of job finding and separation rates for Peru's developing economy, in which labor informality stands at 70%. We find that, on average, these indicators in the formal sector are similar to those estimated in developed economies; however, in the informal sector, the calculated indicators are approximately two times higher than those of the formal sector. The two indicators show considerable heterogeneity in the informal sector according to several observable categories; in addition, the separation rate is countercyclical, and the finding rate is procyclical, this cyclicality being greater in the formal sector.

The literature of ethnic ownership economies descends from middleman minority theory, a subject it continues to include. However, ethnic economy literature now more broadly addresses the economic independence of immigrants and ethnic minorities in general, not just of middleman minorities (Light & Bonacich, 1991, pp. xii–xiii).¹ This expansion releases the subject from narrow concentration upon historical trading minorities, and opens discussion of the entire range of immigrant and ethnic minority strategies for economic self-help and self-defense. Partial or full economic independence represents a ubiquitous self-defense of immigrants and ethnic minorities who confront exclusion or disadvantage in labor markets. Ethnic economies permit immigrants and ethnic minorities to reduce disadvantage and exclusion, negotiating the terms of their participation in the general labor market from a position of greater strength. Unable to find work in the general labor market, or unwilling to accept the work that the general labor market offers, or just reluctant to mix with foreigners, immigrants and ethnic minorities have the option of employment or self-employment in the ethnic economy of their group. Although ethnic and immigrant groups differ in how well and how much they avail themselves of this defense (Collins, 2003; Light & Gold, 2000, p. 34; Logan & Alba, 1999, p. 179), none lacks an ethnic economy.²