Informality, labour transitions, and the livelihoods of workers in Latin America (original) (raw)

This paper studies the incidence and heterogeneity of labour informality in six Latin American countries?Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru. We divide workers into five work statuses: formal wage-employed, formal self-employed, upper-tier informal wage-employed, lower-tier informal wage-employed, and informal self-employed. We evaluate the patterns of the occupational turnover between these work statuses and assess their impact on wage dynamics. In all the countries, wages are highest for formal workers and lowest for lower-tier informal jobs.