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The paper validates the threshold argument in the informality–poverty nexus. Recent literature and policy have argued the existence of a threshold in the relationship.

The study adopts dynamic panel threshold analysis, estimated within the framework of system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) to control for endogeneity and simultaneity. Data from 40 selected sub-Saharan African countries between 1991 and 2018 are used for the study.

Empirical results confirm the existence of an average threshold of 31% share of informality in GDP. Also, the paper finds that threshold of informality that addresses mild and severe poverty varies between 24.32 and 36.75%.

The work is limited to African economies. Evidence from other emerging and developed economies is suggested for further research.

Overall, the empirical results indicate a threshold in the informality–poverty nexus. Therefore, an excessive informality level does not benefit the African growth process. Policymakers and governments are advised to operate within the bounds of the threshold of informality that reduces poverty and improve the African economic growth process.

The paper is the first study to provide empirical findings on the nonlinear and threshold argument in the informality–poverty nexus, as far as the authors know.

This study aims to analyze the factors driving Syrian refugees into the informal labor market in Türkiye despite the existence of regulations and programs to facilitate their integration into the formal labor market.

This study presents results from a literature review of secondary sources and primary data collection through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and Syrian refugees.

The study shows that the implementation of policies and programs to boost formal employment among refugees has yielded limited results. Many refugees continue to operate within the informal economy. This informality is due to various socio-economic challenges, including anti-refugee sentiments, geographical restrictions and economic crises. The 2023 twin earthquakes have further exacerbated the vulnerable situation of refugees, intensifying the difficulty of achieving self-reliance.

The study’s drawbacks include a small sample size. This implies that the sample is not representative; therefore, results may lack generalizability.

The study’s findings could stimulate greater engagement in public policy, facilitate the management of public perceptions regarding refugees and provide support to the private sector, all to enhance the integration of Syrian refugees into the formal labor market.

This study addresses crucial areas previously unexplored, including the impact of economic and natural disaster crises on the labor market integration of refugees. To the best of the author’s knowledge, by investigating these factors for the first time, this study offers novel insights into their influence on refugees’ labor market integration.

Waste management is a crucial aspect of sustainable development, but is it economically sustainable for marginalized informal firms? The study tries to answer this question by revisiting the Porter–Wagner dilemma about the association between environmental management (EM) and firm performance (FP). The study looks into the various liquid waste management practices (LWMPs) adopted by them and the overall impact of LWMPs on firms' economic performance.

The study uses the latest available cross-sectional data source on Indian informal firms by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), 73rd survey round 2015–16. First, ordered logistic regression was used to analyse the factors that impact a firm's adoption of a particular LWMP. Subsequently, to capture the heterogeneity among the firms based on productivity and size, a quantile regression (QR) was employed to analyse the impact of LWMPs on firm productivity. Additionally, the propensity score matching technique was used to address endogeneity concerns.

The authors find that bigger, urban-located and female-owned firms adopt cleaner LWMPs that positively impact their economic performance. Furthermore, the QR analysis observed that the most productive firms could extract higher returns from adopting cleaner LWMPs, indicating the relevance of the Porter–Wagner dilemma, i.e. environmental and economic sustainability are possibly symbiotic, thus having a feedback mechanism.

To the authors’ limited knowledge, this is the first study analysing the relationship between EM and FP among the informal sector firms, which are away from any regulations or obligations. Since sustainability is a two-way process, policies should be devised that incentivise sustainable business practices.

This paper aims to examine the factors associated with a household business entrepreneur’s decisions to formalise the firm at a multidimensions level.

The data set is a panel of 2,336 SMEs and household businesses from Vietnamese SME surveys during the 2005–2015 period.

This study elucidates how firm-level resources, entrepreneur characteristics and costs of doing business influence an entrepreneur’s decision to enter, the speed and the degree of formality.

This study provides insight into the origins of an entrepreneur’s decisions to the multidimensions of business formality through the lenses of the resource-based view, entrepreneurship and institution theories.

Recent work in the economics of innovation in developing countries increasingly considers the formality of business as a determining factor of economic development. However, current knowledge on how formality determines both innovation and business performance remains mixed. This article examines this relationship by analyzing, on the one hand, the role of formality on innovation and, on the other hand, the moderating effect of formality on the relationship between innovation and the performance of business in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on a sample of 1,369 Cameroonian and Senegalese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Crepon Duguet et Maraise (CDM) technique was used to reduce the endogeneity bias inherent in this type of analysis.

The results show that formal companies have a better capacity for innovation. In addition, formality positively moderates the relationship between innovation and the performance of businesses in the case of product and commercial innovations. On the other hand, it negatively moderates the relationship between innovation and the performance for process and organizational innovations.

These results show that the advantages of formalization widely relayed by national public institutions and international organizations can present a risk for business if the expected gains are not accompanied by innovations.

This paper contributes to research by taking into account the heterogeneity of firms because it is one of the first to study formality as a moderator in the relationship between innovation and firm performance in Sub-Saharan African economies.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of private and public initiatives (financial literacy, entrepreneurship, remote work and government aid) on individual job loss and decrease in income during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru.

The authors used an unbalanced panel data analysis with the National Household Survey for 2019–2020. The hypotheses are tested with a probit panel data model since the dependent variables are binary.

The study findings indicate that financial preparedness reduced the probability of having a decrease in income, but only to informal workers in metropolitan Lima. Furthermore, entrepreneurship helped mainly female informal workers to reduce their probability of becoming unemployed in metropolitan Lima. Besides, the implementation of remote work as a substitute of face-to-face work was not enough to avoid the decrease in income in the case of informal workers and it was only effective to avoid unemployment in the case of formal workers in metropolitan Lima. Finally, public aid proved to be instrumental in mitigating the decrease in income, but only to informal workers in Metropolitan Lima.

The study results only apply for the first year of the pandemic.

Policymakers should focus on increasing the financial preparedness of informal workers, especially in provinces.

Policymakers must expand unemployment benefits, and design public aid programs targeting informal workers in provinces.

This is the first study that analyses the impact of private and public initiatives on the decrease in income and unemployment situation of Peruvian individuals during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to analyse the factors influencing migration, the labour migration process and the status of migrant laborers in the informal sector, particularly those working in brick kiln factories. It will shed light on the precarious nature of their work, often characterized by informal and verbal contracts. The paper examines occupational and environmental health hazards affecting the labourers and their impact on their well-being, the vulnerability of women in the precarious work environment and the associated health risks in brick kiln factories in India.

The study relies primarily on primary data collection, supplemented by secondary literature and documents. Balangir district was chosen as the research region due to its historical deprivation, underdevelopment and the historical prevalence of environmental distress, leading to distress-driven migration. To gather primary data, 40 respondents were selected from five selected blocks in Balangir district, resulting in a total of 200 respondents. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with 35 individuals across the selected blocks, with approximately seven participants from each block. In addition, interviews of 10 kids were taken and around 10 key informants including the trade union leaders, intellectuals and civil society activists.

Migrant labourers, including men, women and children, face significant health issues and are exposed to similar occupational health hazards. Internal migrant women workers are more vulnerable as they face critical health risks during pregnancy in host areas due to unfavourable working conditions and limited access to health-care services. Factors such as strenuous work, long working hours, poor nutrition and inadequate maternal care contribute to adverse outcomes such as spontaneous abortion, premature delivery and abnormal postnatal development.

The brick kiln industry presents a distressing reality for men who are highly vulnerable to occupational accidents, and women workers are exposed to sexual abuse, exploitation and violence. The prevalence of physical harassment, ranging from leering to rape, is alarmingly high among women. These incidents not only inflict physical harm but also cause severe psychological trauma and increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Despite the existence of laws aimed at protecting women’s rights and addressing sexual offences, the workers often remain unaware of their rights. This lack of awareness further compounds the vulnerability of women workers and perpetuates their exploitation in the workplace.

To address health issues comprehensively, interventions should encompass the entire migrant population, including men and children. Strategies should focus on improving access to health-care services, promoting occupational health and safety measures, ensuring proper immunization and nutrition for children and addressing the broader social determinants of health. Empowering women with knowledge about reproductive health and rights, raising awareness about available health-care services and strengthening health-care providers’ capacity to cater to migrant populations are crucial steps towards addressing health disparities.

Urgent interventions and policies are needed to address the health vulnerabilities of internal migrant workers and women workers. It is required to ensure health-care accessibility, improving working conditions, ensuring access to maternal care and essential supplements and providing health-care services for both pregnant women and their children, regardless of migration status.

The study focused on precarious health and occupational hazards and accidents faced by migrant workers. It highlights women migrant labourer’s and children’s vulnerability in the Brick Klin sector, which is a value addition to the existing knowledge in social science.

“Poor, Stressed, Drink (alcohol), and Gambling” is one of the campaigns for poverty eradication in Thailand. This study focuses on informal workers—gamblers—who belong to low-income groups and are not covered by the law as an employer. The main objective was to investigate the factors affecting financial stress among informal laborers and determine the factors that drive informal workers to buy lottery tickets (classified by economic, psychological and social motives).

The authors applied binary logistic regression to determine what factors affected financial stress and multinomial logistic regression was applied to examine the factors affecting the motives for buying the lottery.

According to the study's results, factors including education, income, gambling intensity, level of financial literacy, saving and knowledge about finance in general influenced both economic and psychological motives negatively. However, gender, status, age, level of risk tolerance, self-evaluated level of acceptable risk and knowledge about compound interest influenced both economic motives and psychological motives positively. It is worth noting that both the self-evaluation of their level of financial literacy and knowledge about inflation resulted in effects moving in different directions, with self-evaluation of their level of financial literacy and knowledge about inflation negatively affecting economic motives, but positively affecting psychological motives.

The results of this study are expected to help policymakers understand more about this issue since it will illustrate the relationships between financial stress and financial literacy, financial behaviors, financial attitudes and risk tolerance and gambling behaviors. After all, financial stress is a significant problem affecting individuals, their families and the community, and it stems from various complex factors. Therefore, the government and counseling agencies should apply active strategies to mitigate these issues and lessen the resulting financial stress by providing financial literacy projects, as well as financial counseling.

Low financial literacy, especially being inefficient at managing one's finances, unusually comes with unhealthy financial thought patterns, as well as a lack of systematic financial management. Furthermore, the lack of financial literacy can potentially lead to unfavorable circumstances. When one falls into uncontrollable situations, including divorce, becoming unemployed, having health problems, being in toxic relationships, loss of a breadwinner, an unexpected pregnancy, etcetera, they could easily find themselves failing to properly cope with these problems and become stressed. Finally, they are also more at risk to take illicit drugs or begin gambling more frequently.

One of the key elements that reduces financial stress is a person's finances, which is thought to have a significant role in reducing their betting behaviors. The findings of this study can be used to guide policy making intended to deter those who have never gambled from starting. Gambling is considered a risk-taking activity with a higher value reward in return. Money, enjoyment, socialization and excitement were all popular motives for gambling. These findings were consistent with what has been observed in Thai society related to the factors influencing individual to gamble, in other words, economic, psychological and social motives. The study focused on gamblers who were informal laborers. They are laborers without an employer according to the Thai labor law, do not have any social security from the government and, usually, have low incomes.

This study aims to examine the effects of vocational training programs for people with disabilities on their income.

It conducted a multinomial regression analysis of 10,469 survey responses from 31 provincial administrative areas in mainland China.

It finds the following antecedents all influence the trainees’ self-reported income, including their perception of the quality of the program, the training subject, the degree of consistency between their current job and this subject, their employment sector, their motivation and access to training resources and the geographical location of the program.

The findings are not representative of people with disabilities across mainland China because the respondents were not randomly sampled.

The findings suggest that to increase the income of people with disabilities, the training can be designed according to the needs of employers by teaching subjects relevant to the needs of the labor market, reaching out to motivated trainees and enhancing the quality of training. Training institutions, employers and governments are recommended to work together to integrate class-based learning with workplace-based learning and practices. More training resources can be devoted to the self-employed people with disabilities or those who operate in the informal sector and are in less-developed areas.

The improvement of employment opportunities and income of people with disabilities supports the safeguarding of their social economic rights and the building of an inclusive society.

Few studies have empirically explored and explained the effects of vocational training programs on people with disabilities’ income. This article fills this gap by assessing the performance of China's vocational training programs funded by the Federation of Disabled Persons at all levels.

Children's food insecurity experiences are largely unrepresented in academic literature. Parents and caregivers cannot always accurately evaluate their children's attitudes or experiences, and even within the same family unit, children and their parents may report differing views and experiences of family food insecurity. The purpose of this narrative review is to identify studies that include children's voices and their perceptions, understanding, and experience of food insecurity in the household.

This narrative review aimed to address the following questions: (1) “What research studies of household food insecurity include children's voices?” and (2) “Across these studies, how do children perceive, understand and experience food insecurity in the household?”. A database search was conducted in October 2022. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 16 articles remained for review.

The findings from this review were organised into three themes: Theme 1: Ways children coped with accessing food or money for food; Theme 2: Food-related strategies children used to avoid hunger; and Theme 3: Children attempt to mask food insecurity.

Future research should further explore the long-term consequences of social pressures and informal economic engagement on children's well-being and social development. By addressing the social determinants of food insecurity, this study can strive to create supportive environments that enable all children to access adequate nutrition and thrive.

Overall, the findings of this review demonstrate the significant social pressures that shape children's responses to food insecurity. Results suggest that children's decision-making processes are influenced by the desire to maintain social standing and avoid the negative consequences of being food insecure. As such, this review underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the social context in which food insecurity occurs and the impact it has on children's lives. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing effective interventions and policies addressing the multifaceted challenges food insecure children face.

This review has highlighted a need for interventions to incorporate trauma-informed strategies to protect children from and respond to the psychologically distressing experiences and impact of living in food insecure households.