Informal Employment and Worker's Well-Being in the Russian Federation

69 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2019

Date Written: August 20, 2019

Abstract

This paper finds that informal workers are more likely to have inferior work conditions, but do not necessarily report worse subjective well-being. Starting with lower wages, but also with less regularity of hours and paid vacation, informal workers have higher incidence of envelope payments than formal workers but not of hazardous or unstable jobs. After controlling for work conditions, informal workers do not have statistically significantly lower job satisfaction and under no specification are informal workers more likely to self-assess worse health than formal workers. Finally, there is some association between informal employment and household poverty and life satisfaction, but it is not robust to changes in econometric specification or sample composition. The authors conclude that the evidence indicates that informal employment in the Russian Federation is mostly a problem of labor productivity and the design of the social protection system, but worsening wages and some association between informality and household poverty indicate that informality may also be a social equity problem.

Keywords: Employment and Unemployment, Rural Labor Markets, Labor Markets, Health Care Services Industry

Suggested Citation

Kim, Yeon Soo and Matytsin, Mikhail and Freije-Rodriguez, Samuel, Informal Employment and Worker's Well-Being in the Russian Federation (August 20, 2019). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8989, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3440365

Yeon Soo Kim (Contact Author)

World Bank

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Mikhail Matytsin

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Samuel Freije-Rodriguez

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
88
Abstract Views
464
Rank
520,585
PlumX Metrics