A Conceptual Analysis of Informality and the Precarization of Work

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual discussion of the categories of precarious work and informality and the need to differentiate them in economies with a high penetration of informal work, such as Brazil. In order to do that, there’s a review of both international and national literature, recovering their origins, developments and criticisms, and establishing both their commonalities and differences. Its premise is that Brazil, like other countries, is also undergoing a process of job precarization. Since this is a process that modifies the characteristics of informality and is still ongoing, it follows that we must take the category of precarious work into account in order to understand the reality of the labor world in the country. For this reason, and in order to guide future empirical research, the paper proposes a synthesis of the economic space in Brazil, in an effort to integrate the category of precarious work into the available data.

Keywords
Precarious Work; Labor Precarization; Informality; Semiformality; Worker’s Rights