Purpose – A long‐standing meta‐narrative regarding the future of work is that, over history, economic activity has shifted from the informal into the formal economy and that the informal economy is now a residue existing only in the margins. This paper aims to evaluate critically this...

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a critical overview of the diverse visions of the future of employment. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework is presented for understanding the common narrative structure that underpins a multitude of contrasting visions on how employment...

Purpose: The dominant theorisation of the informal economy views participants as rational economic actors operating in the informal economy when the expected benefits exceed the perceived costs of being caught and punished. Recently, an alternative theory has emerged which views participants as...

Purpose: The temporary enforced closure of businesses in response to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in governments in Europe and beyond offering short-term financial support to the businesses and workers affected. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a group of workers unable to...

Purpose: Until now, most scholars have used one of four competing theories to explain undeclared work. Political economy theories explain undeclared work as resulting from the exclusion of workers from formal work and welfare, neo-liberal theories explain such work as a voluntarily chosen...