There is worldwide growth in the numbers of people working in the informal economy, either as self-employed in unregistered enterprises or as wage workers in unprotected jobs. Despite earlier predictions to the contrary, it is now widely recognized that the informal economy is a permanent...

The paper analyses the process of social exclusion and inclusion of the working poor in developing countries, but focusing mostly on women. These processes include: the terms of inclusion of paid workers in global production systems, the barriers to inclusion of the self-employed in global...