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Purpose – The main objective of this research is to explore the impacts of globalization on gender empowerment.

Methodology – This research uses a design that combines lagged cross-sectional and cross-sectional analyses. We have used ordinary least square regression. The sample size for this research is 48–70 nation-states. We have used gender empowerment measurement as an indicator of decision-making power that women in a society gain in decision making as a group.

Findings – Our findings illustrate variable effects of global economy on gender empowerment. Higher commodity concentration significantly lowers women's access to the formal and informal labor force and women's decision-making power after controlling for economic development, culture, and state's location in the global economy. Foreign direct investment lowers women's share in both the formal and informal labor force and women's decision-making power, while increasing women's share of secondary education. Thus, this research examines wider dimensions of women's experiences. We also find that some policies have positive effects, whereas others have negative effects on gender empowerment.

Originality/value of the chapter – Previous research on globalization and development has discussed the impacts of globalization on women's empowerment. However, researchers have either used women's access to formal work or education or gender development scores as an indicator of women's empowerment. Researchers have not captured women's empowerment completely. We have overcome this limitation by defining empowerment as a complex of access to resources (access to education, formal and informal labor force) and decision-making power (gender empowerment scores).

The purpose of this paper is to chart the sharp rise of informal employment in urban China in the last decade. It investigates the role of labour market regulations in shaping employment relations for those engaged in this form of employment and their employment outcome. It also examines various forms of organization and representation of these workers and the extent to which these mechanisms meet their needs.

This paper draws on secondary and first‐hand empirical data. The secondary data come mainly from media sources and academic publications in China. The empirical data from interviews that the author has conducted with the labour authorities, trade union officials, workers, senior managers and owner CEOs of private firms in several cities.

The paper concludes that the inadequacy of the function of employment agencies, the absence of a functioning social security system for workers in informal employment, and the lack of effective enforcement of employment‐related regulations mean that the majority of the growing force of workers in this category will continue to be under‐protected and disadvantaged.

This paper draws information from secondary data and a small number of interviews with key stakeholders in employment relations. Future research should conduct a larger study focusing on the views and experience of workers in the informal sector.

This study reveals some skills gaps and training needs for trade union officials. It also brings to the policy makers' attention some loopholes in the labour regulations and their implementation.

The paper argues that providing decent employment conditions and work environment remains a key challenge to all concerned but is crucial to the well‐being of workers and their families.

The paper examines the efficacy of labour regulations in protecting workers in the informal sector in China by investigating the roles of different institutional actors. It adopts a relational and institutional approach to study the issue.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute original evidence about the conditions for formal and informal contracts for commodities and labour in the waste economy of a South Indian town.

Field research was exploratory, based on snowball sampling and urban traversing. The analysis follows capital and labour in the sub-circuits of capital generating waste in production, distribution, consumption, the production of labour and the reproduction of society.

Regardless of legal regulation, which is selectively enforced, formal contracts are limited to active inspection regimes; direct transactions with or within the state; and long-distance transactions. Formal labour contracts are least incomplete for state employment, and for relatively scarce skilled labour in the private sector.

The research design does not permit quantified generalisations.

Waste management technology evaluations neglect the social costs of displacing a large informal labour force.

While slowly dissolving occupational barriers of untouchability, the waste economy is a low-status labour absorber of last resort, exit from which is extremely difficult.

The first systematic exploration of formal and informal contracts in an Indian small-town waste economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the choice of employment sector for women is driven by the structure of the labour market or determined by the household socioeconomic condition.

Data for the study were drawn from the National Sample Survey 68th round (2011–2012). The sector of employment was assessed through females’ participation as an unpaid labour, employer/own account worker, informal wage worker, formal wage worker and unemployed. A multinomial logit model was used to examine the factors that determine the sector of employment.

Although education increases formal employment among women, most of them are unemployed or entering into informal employment. It indicates that the labour market has not been able to integrate educated women into formal employment.

Increase in female education accompanied by a slow growth of employment creates the challenge to accommodate the educated and skilled women in formal employment.

This study examines the factors determining the sectoral participation of employment to assess the responses of the current labour market for the females, especially educated females who have not been adequately addressed. The findings of the study have significant implications for formulating appropriate labour market policies for the educated female labour force.

This study investigates the formal/informal employment earnings gap in Turkey. We focus on the earnings differentials that can be explained by observable characteristics and unobservable time-invariant individual heterogeneity. We first, estimate the standard Mincer earnings equations using ordinary least squares (OLS), controlling for individual, household, and job characteristics. Next we use, panel data and the quantile regression (QR) techniques in order to account for unobserved factors which might affect the earnings and the intrinsic heterogeneity within formal and informal sectors. OLS results confirm the existence of an informal sector penalty almost half of which is explained by observable variables. We find that formal-salaried workers are paid significantly higher than their informal counterparts and of the self-employed confirming the heterogeneity within the informal employment. QR results show that pay differentials are not uniform along the earnings distribution. In contrast to the mainstream literature which views informal self-employment as the upper-tier and wage-employment as the lower-tier, we find that self-employment corresponds to the lower-tier in the Turkish labor market. Finally, fixed effects estimation indicates that unobserved individual characteristics combined with controls for observable characteristics explain the pay differentials between formal and informal employment entirely in the total and the female sample. However, informal sector penalty persists in the male sample.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to compare conditions in informal day-labor markets in South Africa and the USA to better understand the nature of worker vulnerabilities in this market, as well as the economic conditions that have contributed to the growth of day labor. The conclusion considers interventions that are underway in the two countries to improve conditions in day-labor markets.

The paper is based on national surveys of day laborers in South Africa and the USA. A random sample of day laborers seeking work at informal hiring sites was undertaken in each country. The paper presents key findings, compares conditions in South Africa and the USA, and analyzes the relationship between economic change, labor-market dynamics, and worker vulnerability.

Day-labor work is characterized by low pay, hazardous conditions on the job, and tremendous income insecurity. The day-labor markets in South Africa and the USA perform somewhat different functions within regional economies. Within South Africa, day labor can be regarded as a survival strategy. The growth of day labor in South Africa over the past decade is a manifestation of a formal labor market that is incapable of absorbing the structurally unemployed. Here, day labor is the employment of last resort, allowing workers to subsist on the fringes of the mainstream economy, but offering few pathways into the formal sector. In the USA, the day labor workforce is a largely undocumented-immigrant workforce. Workers seek work at informal hiring sites, maintaining a tenuous hold on jobs in the construction industry. There is evidence of some mobility into more stable and better paying employment.

This paper documents the need for policies and programs to increase employment opportunities for day laborers and to better enforce labor standards in the informal economy.

This paper summarizes findings from the only two national surveys of day laborers that have been conducted, and it compares for the first time the dynamic within growing day-labor markets in a developed- and emerging-market context.

Governments in both developing and developed economies play an active role in labor markets in the form of providing both formal public sector jobs and employment through public workfare programs. The authors refer to this as employment targeting. The purpose of the paper is to consider different labor market effects of employment targeting in a stylized model of a developing economy. In the context of a simple search and matching friction model, the authors show that the propensity for the public sector to target more employment can increase the unemployment rate in the economy and lead to an increase in the size of the informal sector.

The model is an application of a search and matching model of labor market frictions, where agents have heterogeneous abilities. The authors introduce a public sector alongside the private sector in the economy. Wage in the private sector is determined through Nash bargaining, whereas the public sector wage is exogenously fixed. In this setup, the public sector hiring rate influences private sector job creation and hence the overall employment rate of the economy. As an extension, the authors model the informal sector coupled with the other two sectors. This resembles developing economies. Then, the authors check the overall labor market effects of employment targeting through public sector intervention.

In the context of a simple search and matching friction model with heterogeneous agents, the authors show that the propensity for the public sector to target more employment can increase the unemployment rate in the economy and lead to an increase in the size of the informal sector. Employment targeting can, therefore, have perverse effects on labor market outcomes. The authors also find that it is possible that the private sector wage falls as a result of an increase in the public sector hiring rate, which leads to more job creation in the private sector.

What is less understood in the literature is the impact of employment targeting on the size of the informal sector in developing economies. The authors fill this gap and show that public sector intervention can have perverse effects on overall job creation and the size of the informal sector. Moreover, a decrease in the private sector wage due to a rise in public sector hiring reverses the consensus findings in the search and matching literature which show that an increase in public sector employment disincentivizes private sector vacancy postings.

This research contributes to current debates on automation and the future of work, a much-hyped but under researched area, in emerging economies through a particular focus on India. It assesses the national strategy on artificial intelligence and explores the impact of automation on the Indian labour market, work and employment to inform policy.

The article critically assesses the National Strategy on AI, promulgated by NITI Aayog (a national policy think tank), supported by the government of India and top industry associations, through a sectoral analysis. The key dimensions of the national strategy are examined against scholarship on the political economy of work in India to better understand the possible impact of automation on work.

The study shows that technology is not free from the wider dynamics that surround the world of work. The adoption of new technologies is likely to occur in niches in the manufacturing and services sectors, while its impact on employment and the labour market more broadly, and in addressing societal inequalities will be limited. The national strategy, however, does not take into account the nature of capital accumulation and structural inequalities that stem from a large informal economy and surplus labour context with limited upskilling opportunities. This raises doubts about the effectiveness of the current policy.

The critical assessment of new technologies and work has two implications: first, it underscores the need for situated analyses of social and material relations of work in formulating and assessing strategies and policies; second, it highlights the necessity of qualitative workplace studies that examine the relationship between technology and the future of work.

The article assesses an influential state policy in a key aspect of future of work–automation.

The policy assessed in this study would have significant social and economic outcomes for labour, work and employment in India. The study highlights the limitations of the state policy in addressing key labour market dimensions and work and employment relations in its formulation and implementation.

This study is the first to examine the impact of automation on work and employment in India. It provides a critical intervention in current debates on future of work from the point of view of an important emerging economy defined by labour surplus and a large informal economy.

This paper aims to theoretically find out whether investments could close the formal-informal wage gap in India.

The paper builds a general equilibrium model of a developing economy with a large informal sector and a capital-intensive formal sector with sector-specific capital and incorporates endogenous demand.

With homothetic preferences, a small initial wage premium and elastic relative demand, investment in the formal sector is likely to close the wage gap, but the gap persists with non-homothetic preferences. However, investment in the informal sector is unlikely to close the wage gap with either type of preferences.

Though labour market distortions in developing economies leading to a formal-informal wage gap are well-documented in the development literature, little attention has been given to the question of whether such a gap would close over time.