Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Struggling with Informality
- 3 The Success of Competitive Populism
- 4 Communism's Resistance to Change
- 5 The Minimal Gains of Accommodation
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix I Photos of Informal Workers in Construction and Bidi
- Appendix II The Evolution of the Count of Informal Workers
- Appendix III Interview Methodology
- References
- Index
Appendix II - The Evolution of the Count of Informal Workers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Struggling with Informality
- 3 The Success of Competitive Populism
- 4 Communism's Resistance to Change
- 5 The Minimal Gains of Accommodation
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix I Photos of Informal Workers in Construction and Bidi
- Appendix II The Evolution of the Count of Informal Workers
- Appendix III Interview Methodology
- References
- Index
Summary
This Appendix provides background information for my calculations of the size and characteristics of the informal workforce using the 1999 National Sample Survey on Employment and Unemployment (NSS) (NSSO 2001a). For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Agarwala (2009). Perhaps the largest obstacle to work on the informal economy to date has been the lack of consensus on how to define, and thus count, informal workers. Recent studies have begun to establish definitions that are becoming consistent, at least within India.
Since the early 1970s, scholars have used a diverse range of methodologies to capture the informal workforce. When Keith Hart first coined the term “the informal sector,” there was little agreement about the concept, much less the methodology used to measure it. Almost no national-level data sets collected information on informal workers. As a result, scholars offered different, sometimes even conflicting, conclusions about the causes and effects of informal work.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013