Living with Precarity and Informality In Racialised Migratory Contexts

Precarious, i.e. unstable, insecure and unprotected, work is a global phenomenon. ILO (2021) estimates that over 60 percent of globally employed populations are working informally lacking access to basic social benefits. Precarisation is driven by capitalist value chains, neoliberal labour flexibilization, underinvestment in social protection and racialised colonial legacies. Processes of informalisation are not limited to the informal economy but common in construction, agriculture, hospitality, care and domestic work sectors.

Research suggests that precarious and informal jobs are frequently held by women, racialised minorities, and migrants. Whilst precarisation lowers the social reproduction costs of labour for the employers and the states in which migrants are working, it makes the social reproduction of labour increasingly difficult in the poorer regions. Because work precarity and informality concerns especially migrants and racialised minorities, these empirical realities are easily missed. This session brings together scholars researching processes of precarisation and informalisation of work with a particular focus on experiences of migrants and racialised minorities. It emphasises the everyday perspectives in debates that often remain on the aggregate level. What does living with precarity and informality mean for workers and their families? What strategies do workers and their families develop to navigate and resist precarious labour conditions? How do informal and precarious work affect and restructure family relations and care responsibilities? We invite empirically grounded papers that examine how intersectional structural conditions of work precarity and informality affect individuals’ livelihoods, how these are experienced by individuals and their families, and what strategies workers adapt.