ABSTRACT When explaining participation in undeclared work, the dominant theorisation views undeclared workers as rational economic actors participating in undeclared work when the benefits exceed the expected costs of being caught and punished. An alternative theorisation views participants’ in the undeclared economy as social actors driven into undeclared work by their lack of vertical trust (in governments) and horizontal trust (in others). To evaluate these perspectives, this paper reports data from 27,565 interviews conducted for a 2019 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work in 28 European countries. This reveals that raising the expected costs of being caught and punished has no significant impact on the likelihood of conducting undeclared work. However, greater vertical and horizontal trust have a significant impact on preventing participation in undeclared work, and vertical and horizontal trust also moderate the effectiveness of using penalties and detection to deter engagement in undeclared work. The implication for theory is that a social actor perspective is advocated. The result is a call for a policy shift away from the dominant deterrence approach that increases the penalties and risks of detection, and towards a policy approach focused on improving vertical and horizontal trust.

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to better understand cross-national variations in the informalisation of employment by evaluating critically three contrasting explanations which variously represent informal employment as more prevalent in: poorer under-developed economies (modernisation thesis); societies with high taxes, corruption and state interference in the free market (neo-liberal thesis) and societies with inadequate levels of state intervention to protect workers (political economy thesis). To evaluate these rival explanations, the relationship between the variable informalisation of employment in 10 Central and East European countries, measured using data from a 2007 Eurobarometer cross-national survey involving 5769 face-to-face interviews, and their broader work and welfare regimes are analysed. The finding is that wealthier, less corrupt and more equal societies and those possessing higher levels of taxation, social protection and effective redistribution via social transfers are significantly more likely to have lower levels of informalisation. No evidence is thus found to support the neo-liberal tenets that the informalisation of employment results from high taxes and too much state interference in the free market but evidence is found to positively confirm the modernisation and political economy theses as explanations for the cross-national variations in the informalisation of employment. The paper concludes by discussing the tentative theoretical and policy implications of these findings and calling for further evaluation of their wider validity both longitudinally and across other global regions.

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates critically the major competing perspectives regarding the participation of the unemployed in undeclared work. These are firstly, the ‘marginalisation’ perspective which holds that the unemployed disproportionately participate in and gain from undeclared work, and secondly, the ‘reinforcement’ perspective which holds that the unemployed benefit less from undeclared work than those in declared employment, meaning that undeclared work reinforces, rather than reduces, the inequalities produced by the declared realm. Reporting the results of a 2007 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work comprising 26,659 face-to-face interviews conducted in the 27 member states of the European Union, the finding is that the marginalisation perspective is applicable to Southern Europe and the reinforcement perspective to Nordic nations. However, in East-Central Europe and Western European nations, as well as the EU-27 as a whole, the marginalisation and reinforcement perspectives are not mutually exclusive but co-exist; the unemployed are more likely to participate in undeclared work but receive significantly lower earnings and gain less from undeclared work than those working undeclared who are in declared jobs. The outcome is a call for a new ‘reinforced marginalisation’ perspective which holds that the unemployed disproportionately engage in undeclared work but their participation reinforces their marginalised position relative to the employed. The paper then seeks tentative explanations for these findings.

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates critically competing explanations for participation in undeclared work that either read engagement through a structuralist lens as driven by ‘exclusion’ from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy or through a neo-liberal and/or post-structuralist lens as driven by the voluntary ‘exit’ of workers out of formal institutions. Reporting a 2005/6 household work practices survey involving 313 face-to-face interviews in contemporary Moscow, the finding is that there is no single unique logic underpinning undeclared work in this post-Soviet city; such work is neither universally driven by exclusion nor exit. Different mixtures of the two prevail across different populations and forms of undeclared work. The outcome is a call for greater appreciation of the multifarious character of undeclared work and a move beyond simplistic explanations and policy responses.

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates critically the conventional hierarchical representation of the formal/informal employment dualism, which depicts formal employment as extensive and positively contributing to economic development and social cohesion, and the separate realm of informal employment as weaker, inhabiting the margins and impairing progress and development. Although the discourses of informal employment as weak, marginal and separate from formal employment have been previously put under the spotlight, there has been little questioning of whether informal employment is a negative phenomenon. Through a study of Ukraine, however, this paper finds evidence that informal employment positively contributes to not only economic development as a seedbed for enterprise and entrepreneurship but also social cohesion as a primary vehicle for delivering community self-help. The outcome is a call for a finer-grained understanding of informal (and ultimately also formal) employment that recognises its plurality of forms and their varying consequences for economic development and social cohesion.

A recurring assumption is that undeclared work is market-like and motivated by monetary gain and thus that participants make a rational economic decision to engage in such an enterprise. In consequence, the predominant public policy response has been to seek to deter this work by ensuring that the expected cost of being caught and punished is greater than the economic benefit of participating. Here, however, and drawing upon evidence from 861 face-to-face interviews conducted in England, an alternative reading of undeclared work is presented more appreciative of the heterogeneous work relations and motives involved and its variable meanings. This identifies how although some undeclared work is market-like and conducted for monetary gain, there is also undeclared work conducted under social relations and for motives more akin to unpaid mutual aid. The paper then explores the various policy options that could be adopted and their implications.