Approaching the analysis of the socioeconomic reality of developing countries requires, and has been the case for at least half a century, stopping at the study, among other phenomena, of what has been called the informal economy.
Since, back in 1970, the term informality was coined within the ILO, by drawing attention to the fact that, in relatively less developed countries, the employment problem is not so much concentrated in unemployment [typical in developed countries] but, mainly, in those people who, while employed, receive insufficient income. Previously, economic and sociological literature had referred to the phenomenon, in a different perspective, referring to traditional economic relations that coexisted, and coexist, with the modern sector, of industrial capitalism, more or less advanced.
Today, after more than five decades of research on the phenomenon, we have an abundant empirical literature referring to all parts of the world. Literature offers us a detailed photograph of informality from different perspectives, of the impact it has on developing economies. Also on developed economic ones –with different names- and diverse and different interpretations of the role of this phenomenon in development dynamics. Is it just a refuge for those who flee from the demanding regulations of public administrations on the running of markets, with informal activity constituting a palpable example of repressed entrepreneurial spirit? Or rather, informality means a universal reality intrinsically and functionally linked to the formality of capitalism itself in its different stages? Different analytical approaches to interpret a reality that shows evident links with the socioeconomic inequality of the world in which we live, with poverty and with the social exclusion of large part of the population, in the most varied economies, advanced or emerging. In this perspective, we are interested in dwelling on the dimension of informality and its socioeconomic role among women, especially about their assumption of domestic work and the extensive and varied care work that women provides outside the market economy.
Under these premises, we intend, in this I International Workshop on Informality, to debate about the different interpretations that the phenomenon under analysis receives now, particularly from the perspective of Socioeconomics, dwelling on its incidence in employment and in certain areas of economic and labor activity.
In addition, all this with a particular look at the Latin American reality, a point of reflection for a huge part of the academics who participate in this Workshop.
