Book Chapter
The job ladder

This chapter outlines the content and scope of the book. Further, it sets out the intended intellectual contribution of the book. Using a range of countries from the Global South, the book examines heterogeneity within informal work by applying a common conceptual framework and empirical methodology.

The country studies use panel data to study the dynamics of worker transitions between formal and heterogeneous informal work. The range of country studies are drawn from Asia, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

A key contribution of the book is that it offers a more nuanced view of informality that differentiates not only between formal and informal, self-employed and wage-employment, but also between upper-tier and lower-tier informality.