Social contracts and informal workers in the global south / / edited by Laura Alfers, Research Associate, Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, South Africa and Director, Social Protection Programme, WIEGO, UK, Martha Chen, Lecturer of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, US and Senior Advisor, WIEGO, UK, Sophie Plagerson, Visiting Associate Professor, Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg, South Africa and independent consultant, the Netherlands.

• TeilnehmendeR: Alfers, Laura,; Chen, Martha Alter,; Plagerson, Sophie,; Edward Elgar Publishing,
• Place / Publishing House: Northampton : : Edward Elgar Publishing,, 2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 pages)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

"Social Contracts and Informal Workers in the Global South draws on the accounts of informal workers, who represent over 60 per cent of the global workforce, to advocate for radically new conceptualizations of state-society, capital-labour and state-capital-labour relations, illustrating how current social contracts may be considered inadequate, irrelevant or unjust. Bridging social contract theories, both mainstream and critical, and the experiences of informal workers - self-employed, wage employed and sub-contracted - this book sheds light on how many existing social contract models stigmatize informal workers and do not offer legal or social protection. Instead of ideologically driven 'top-down' calls to revitalize the social contract, it advocates for 'bottom-up' initiatives focused on the demands of the working poor in the informal economy. With a wealth of cross-national evidence, as well as promising case studies, this timely and thought-provoking book will prove vital for scholars and researchers of informal workers and of state-capital-labour relations; and for policy makers negotiating new social contracts"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Introduction: social contracts and informal workers in the global South -- 1. Recognition, responsiveness and reciprocity: what informal worker leaders expect from the state, the private sector and themselves -- 2. Self-employment and social contracts from the perspective of the informal self-employed -- 3. "Dependent Contractor": towards the recognition of a new labor category -- 4. Taxation and the informal sector in the global South: strengthening the social contract without reciprocity? -- 5. Towards a more inclusive social protection: informal workers and the struggle for a new social contract -- 6. Extended Producer Responsibility: opportunities and challenges for waste pickers -- 7. Human rights and transnational social contracts: the recognition and inclusion of homeworkers? -- 8. Informal workers harnessing the power of digital platforms in India -- 9. "Essential and disposable? Or just disposable?" Informal workers during COVID-19 -- Conclusion: Post-pandemic epilogue - the bad old contract, an even worse contractor a better social contract for informal workers? -- Index.