INSEAI Blog

Stay up to date with our Blog, which offers analysis and commentary on the latest developments in understanding this phenomenon. Posts feature contributions from members of our network and other colleagues, analysts, and technicians interested in exploring the diverse aspects of informal activities and their key subjects.

Our Blog will feature analyses and commentaries on the main developments regarding informality in its various contexts, prepared by members of our INSEAI Network and other analysts of the phenomenon. They provide numerous insights, offering valuable multidisciplinary perspectives on informality, both theoretically and applied, particularly in relation to Europe and Latin America.

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Blog posts:

The Informal Economy: A New International Statistical Framework. (2026/11)

20.10.2026

Michael Frosch. The concept of informal economy is widely used. It appears in studies of poverty, productivity, social protection, labour market segmentation, entrepreneurship and economic development. Yet despite its importance, researchers often encounter a surprisingly basic challenge: people do not always mean the same thing when they talk about informality. » Read more

 

The Rising Trend of Psychological Distress in Argentina: Assessing Structural Determinants (2026/10)

16.09.2026

María Agustina Paternó Manavella, ODSA-UCA. The research, based on annual data from the Argentine Social Debt Survey (2010–2025) and a longitudinal panel (2022–2024), identifies poverty, labour precarity and structural inequalities as key determinants, showing that vulnerability is three times higher under unstable economic and employment conditions. » Read more

 

Beyond Informality: Popular Economies, Gender, and Temporalities in Northern Argentina (2026/9)

20.08.2026

Florencia Antonella Nieva, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. This article examines popular economies in Northern Argentina, proposing that they do not constitute mere "informality" but rather practices organized across three coexisting temporalities: immediate daily subsistence, historical processes of labor exclusion since the 1990s, and ancestral reciprocity practices. » Read more

 

Labor Informality, Material Deprivation, and Territory in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. (2026/8)

23.07.2026

Juan Ignacio Bonfiglio, Universidad de Buenos Aires. The text shows that labor informality in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area is territorially concentrated and more strongly linked to structural habitat deprivation—housing, services, and living environment—than income poverty. This suggests that its most persistent effects are tied to historical urban inequalities and deep socio-spatial gaps. » Read more

 

The Shared Mechanisms of Youth Labour-Market Insertion. A Comparative Study of Argentina, and Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland. (2026/7)

24.06.2026

Nazarena Bauso, Universidad Católica Argentina. The article compares youth labour-market insertion in Argentina, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Poland to show that, although instability takes different forms — structural informality in Argentina and institutionalised flexibilisation in Europe — there are shared mechanisms to face it. » Read more

 

Gender and informality in Argentina. Regional differences. (2026/6)

28.05.2026

Laura Golovanevsky. Universidad Naciona de Argentina. This study examines the relationship between gender and informality in Argentina (2016-2024) at the regional level. Contrary to expectations, informality is not consistently higher among women; it varies by region and year, with a relative worsening for them after the pandemic. The northern regions (NOA, NEA) have higher informality figures. » Read more

 

Labor dynamics in times of migration crisis: the structural problem of informality (2026/5)

13.05.2026

In Colombia, Venezuelan migration does not create informality; it deepens pre-existing structural traps. It lowers upward mobility, hits poor women and youth hardest, and calls for policies that protect formal jobs, foster formalization, and promote effective labor integration of migrants. » Read more

 

Labor Informality in Economic Thought (2026/4)

15.04.2026

Shirley Benavides Vindas. Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica. A journey through the evolution of labor informality in economic thought reveals its presence from Marxist critiques to modern approaches like institutionalism and the ILO, transitioning from dualistic views (formal vs. informal) to multidimensional analyses addressing precariousness, exclusion, and lack of rights. » Read more

 

Informal Economy in Brazil: Informal labor – structural and cyclical results (2026/3)

24.03.2026

João Hallak Neto. Census results for 2022 confirm that informality remains a significant, geographically concentrated feature of the Brazilian labor market. Nationally, informal employment accounts for roughly one third of the employed population, but the incidence and income implications vary markedly across regions and municipalities. » Read more

 

Old Informalities, New Economies: Structural Analogies of Informal Work in Contexts of Transition. The Argentine Case as an Illustrative Experience in Middle-Income Economies (2026/2)

16.02.2026

Agustín Salvia (CONICET – UBA – UCA). Recent transformations in the world of work—driven by digitalization, the flexibilization of labor relations, and the reorganization of productive processes—have revived longstanding debates on labor informality. Far from disappearing with economic modernization, informality persists and takes on new forms » Read more

 

Inside Rocinha: the invisible architecture of informality and resilience (2026/1)

21.01.2026

Eduard Mihai Manta and Adriana AnaMaria Davidescu. Bucharest University. Rocinha greets you long before you reach its narrow alleys. The soundscape changes first, the steady hum of Rio’s formal city gives way to a vibrant mix of moto-taxis weaving through impossible curves, music spilling from windows stacked tightly on top of one another, and the chatter of street vendors » Read more