Harold Wilson Mentioned: "A week is a long time in politics." Ten years is an eternity for the informal sector. While the informal sector has been significant to the fortune nations in the last decade and, this same period, has seen massive changes in direction, complexity of systems, and in sheer size of the enterprise, not to mention social and economic purpose yet it is low in the agenda of governments.
Against this background, and analysis of informal sector policies, which must occupy a crucial place in understanding the contextual setting of reform in individual countries, has acquired a new significance as pace of internationalization itself accelerates. There are many reasons why this should be so: the creation of new economic blocs; the gradual emergence of a transnational policy for the formal sector that may infect, if not affect, the informal, the rise of new economies in Asia, etc. The breakdown of a seemingly established order has ushered in a renewed interest in the informal sector and in how other segments of society are going about tackling, through often similar issues, in different ways.
This special PJLIR issue offers critical reflections on important core and functional areas of the informal sector; it draws upon evidences needed in informed decision making. Hence this collection of papers embraces variety of disciplinary approaches and levels of analysis, a diversity that captures the multiple facets and determinants of the informal economy. Some studies analyze the practice of social responsibility at the national or policy level, while others focus on specific concerns such as safety and health, housing cooperatives and retailing. This 'embeddedness' of the informal sector to the formal economy explains the apparent paradox that, in an age of global economic integration, national differences in economic institutions become ever more apparent and consequential. As these studies make clear, the determinants of change and development include not only market incentives, but institutional and strategic factors as well.
Researchers seeking to fathom the nature of the informal sector employed new frameworks from economics, political science and management studies to assess its multiple dimensions. Often encountering each other in the field, they recognized and opportunity to bring together their research results in order to fill a crucial empirical gap in the study of the informal sector and its ongoing transformation. Various studies were assembled through casual networks and contacts made in the course of reasearches. This edition does not identify simple solutions, rather it recognizes that, like most endeavors, concerns of the informal sector is an ongoing challenge that needs to respond to local, national and international pressures.
In order to maintain their focus on the informal sector, the authors have kept away from three staples of existing literature. First , there is no evangelism as they are not proselytizing for (or against) the informal sector. Second, this is not a tool kit. Its purpose is to identify policy options and their strenghts and weaknesses, not to provide didactic prescriptions. Third and closely related, it is not a management guide on the details of the informal sector. Rather its purpose is to examinine issues and test theories in the so-called "people's economy" -- which are current and practical concerns to its mains constituencies -- the poor, disadvantaged and disenfranchised, those researching in this domain and students.
The editing of this volume was not protracted effort but work still put an inevitable toll to those who have been part of it. The editor would like to thank the contributors for their willingness to submit their research findings for joint publication and for their patience in seeing the project to an end. As usual, the SOLAIR staff provided sterling help for much of the editorial work, for which we are most grateful.
Isagani Antonio F. Yuzon, Ph.D. Issue, Editor
The Philippine Journal of Industrial Relations is a refereed journal. Please send manuscripts to the issue editor.
Philippine Journal of Industrial Relations, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101, Philippines
*Currently enrolled SOLAIR students, copy of this journal can be secured from SOLAIR Library.
