Tokman 2007

Tokman, Víctor E. 2007. "The informal economy, insecurity and social cohesion in Latin America". International Labour Review. 146 (1-2): 81-107.

•  Social cohesion comes when a country has achieved economic progress and redistributed the fruits of that growth to the whole of society (81)
• social cohesion helps ensure fairer development and involve all the population in efforts to achieve that growth
• social protection is still limited in LA
• social cohesion provides the causal link between mechanisms of integration and well-being and individuals feeling of belonging to society (82)
• this articles measures this by looking at labor marker participation, social protection and public perception of the effectiveness of instruments about these two issues
• Open markets and their effect
• open markets have meant employment is more closely linked to external demand
• this means the possibilities for increasing wages above productivity or expanding internal demand is limited
• instability is high and particularly affects smaller countries with more open economies, which in turn usually have inadequate instruments to deal with this instability
• informality and precariousness grew. even when poverty retreated, high-income groups shifted some of the adjustment costs to the middle-income groups. Thus, inequality did not diminish and wide income disparities grew (83)
• Employment tenure
• decline in employment tenure and high labor turnover
• but the time spent unemployed tended to be shorter
• but people worried about being unemployed: 75% worried about it, while only 59% of households experienced some unemployment  during the previsous year (citing Latinobarometer from 2005)
• only 18% felt protected by labor legislation
• the informal economy
• insecurity affects the whole population, but it tends to affect the socially excluded even more (84)
• informal sector became the informal economy
• precarious work was mostly concentrated in the informal sector, but was increasingly seen in formal-sector enterprises (85)
• only Chile, Argentina, Brazil and El Salvador have seen a decrease in informal-sector activities in the past 15 years (no citation for this, seems to get it from ECLAC) (86)
• the larger the informal sector, the larger public perception of insecurity...more unequal countries also have a larger informal sector (87)
• labor market participation determines eligibility for social security which determines cohesion, and obviously informal sector workers don't participate in labor market (89)
• Strategies favoring social cohesion
• workers in informal sector are often workers and entrepreneurs (92)
• they are socially excluded by low incomes, lack of social protections, and employment isntability
• they are integrated into the labor market but on a precarious basis
• need to extend social protections in order to make people feel like they belong (92-93)
• entry into the formal sector opens the door to social and economic citizenship which, in turn, is a prerequisite for belonging and integration (93)
• issues of micro-enterprises being able to absorb the costs associated with formal employment (95)
• perhaps create a dual system, one for small biz and one for big ones
• "fundamental rights are inalienable even if the necessary compliance involves some job losses" (96)
• Three strategies to address social tension (105)
• incorporate the informal sector into the modern sector
• fix problems with "disguised" employment and/or emloyment not initially included under labor legislation (105-106)
• do flexicurity (106)

my take: this dude is from Europe, and wants the rest of the world to look like Europe