The Role of Informal Economies in the Post-Soviet World

6    Informal employment

Introduction

Informal employment is here defined as paid labour unregistered by or hidden from the state for tax, social security and labour law purposes (European Commission 2007). Akin to the other eight labour practices considered in this book, different varieties exist, ranging from waged informal employment where employees are employed on an undeclared basis by formal or informal businesses to informal self-employment which can be conducted by own-account workers who work either wholly or partially off-the-books.

In this chapter, the intention is to evaluate the prevalence and nature of informal employment in post-Soviet/socialist spaces. To achieve this, first, a brief review is undertaken of the different methods ...