The Role of Informal Economies in the Post-Soviet World

7    One-to-one unpaid labour, reimbursed family work and paid favours

Introduction

This chapter examines three further forms of work that have in common the fact that they are conducted on a one-to-one basis, namely one-to-one unpaid labour, reimbursed family work and paid favours. The intention is to display the prevalence of these forms of labour in everyday livelihood practices in post-Soviet societies in order to show on the one hand, how the transition to a hegemonic formal market economy is far from achieved and that post-Soviet societies remain characterised by diverse economies, and on the other hand, the role of these informal economies in everyday livelihood practices in the post-Soviet world.

To evaluate, first, one-to-one unpaid ...