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Women and those on low incomes have already borne the brunt of the first wave of austerity under the Coalition government.

You can find the Women's Budget Group Gender Impact Assessment of the 2017 Spring Budget here.
Database on austerity, equality and human rights
The Centre for Human Rights in Practice at the University of Warwick School of Law has produced a database of resources for organisations, groups and individuals concerned with the human rights and/or equality impact of public spending cuts in the UK. The database includes links to analysis of the impact of austerity on different groups, including women as well as resources for groups wishing to carry out their own impact assessment of spending cuts.
Access the database here Reports and briefings on the impact of austerity on women
Prof. Prem Sikka, The Conversation, March 2015: This election, remember that cracking down on tax avoidance could end austerity

Social Policy in a Cold Climate Research Programme, Jan 2015: The Coalition's Social Policy Record: Policy, Spending and Outcomes, 2010-2015

UNISON report, June 2014: Counting the Cost: How cuts are shirnking women's lives

TUC report, Feb 2014: Age Immaterial: Women Over 50 in the Workplace

Gingerbread, Dec 2013: Paying the Price - single parents in the age of austerity

The Money Advice Service, Nov 2013: Indebted lives: the complexities of life in debt

Layers of Inequality: A Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessment of the Public Spending Cuts on Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Women in Coventry, by Kalwinder Sandhu, Mary-Ann Stephenson and James Harrison. (A joint report of Coventry Women's Voices, Coventry Ethnic Minority Action Partnership, Foleshill Women's Training and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice, School of Law, University of Warwick.) (2013)

Estimating the costs of tax and benefit changes by gender, House of Commons Library Standard Note (19 November 2013)

Findings and Recommendations from Interim Case Study: the impact of austerity measures upon women in the North East of England, by Sue Robson and June Robinson, (North East Women's Network, Women's Resource Centre) (October 2012)

TUC Women and the Cuts toolkit: how to carry out a human rights and equality impact assessment of the spending cuts on women, by Mary-Ann Stephenson (Coventry Women's Voices) (2011)

Cutting Women Out in Bristol: Impact Assessment of the Public Spending Cuts on Women in Bristol, by Anna Mapson for Bristol Fawcett (2011)
IFS Report on Gender Impact of Coalition government tax and benefit changes - June 2011:
With support and advice from the WBG, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Fawcett Society released an analysis of the impact of the UK Government's tax and benefit reforms by sex.

This is the first piece of research of its kind to be carried out. It provides an example of simple but meaningful analysis that the UK Government should be carrying out - but currently does not - in order to fulfil its legal duty to pay 'due regard' to the impact of its policies on equality between women and men.

You can read the IFS's full report on their website, as well as the Fawcett Society's digest of the research: Single Mothers, Singled Out.

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Women and austerity in the UK - Womens Budget Group

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Women and those on low incomes have already borne the brunt of the first wave of austerity under the Coalition government. You can find the Women's Budget Group Gender Impact Assessment of the 2017 Spring Budget here.

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Strictly Embargoed Until 00.01 hrs Tuesday 10 October 2017

Read the full press release Intersecting Inequalities Press Release October 2017

Economic analysis from two organisations specialising in gender and race research has found that the poorest black and Asian families will suffer a massive 20% drop in living standards by 2020.

Theresa May has said her racial equality audit will "hold up a mirror" to British society and "reveal uncomfortable truths." A new report by the Runnymede Trust and the Women's Budget Group, does just that.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the cumulative impact of austerity policies since 2010. It shows that austerity is hitting the poorest hardest, women are losing more than men and BME households are losing more than white households.

The intersection of poverty, race and gender means that these cuts are leading to a dramatic fall in the standard of living of many BME women.

Email maryann.stephenson@wbg.org.uk if you would like the full report

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New report reveals huge racial disparities in income for ethnic minority women - Womens Budget Group

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Strictly Embargoed Until 00.01 hrs Tuesday 10 October 2017 Read the full press release Intersecting Inequalities Press Release October 2017 Economic analysis from two organisations specialising in gender and race research has found that the poorest black and Asian families will suffer a massive 20% drop in living standards by 2020.

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Theresa May has said her racial equality audit, published today, will "hold up a mirror" to British society and "reveal uncomfortable truths." A new report by the Runnymede Trust and the Women's Budget Group, does just that.

The report, Intersecting Inequalities: the impact of austerity on BME women, shows that as a result of tax and benefit changes and lost services since 2010, by 2020:

● The poorest families will lose the most; with an average drop in living standards of around 17%
● Black and Asian households with the lowest fifth of incomes will experience the biggest average drop in living standards of 19.2% and 20.1%, respectively. This equates to a real-terms average annual loss in living standards of £8,407 and £11,678.
● Lone mothers (who represent 92% of lone parents) will experience an average drop in living standards of 18% (£8,790).

The findings are further evidence of the "burning injustice of inequality" that Theresa May pledged to fight. In 2010 she warned that austerity might impact hardest on women and BME communities. She has been proven right. The challenge now is to take action.

For more information about the project and to read the report see our microsite: www.intersecting-inequalities.com

You can also download the Executive Summary here: Executive Summary Intersecting Inequalities October 2017

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Intersecting Inequalities: the impact of austerity on BME women in the UK - Womens Budget Group

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Theresa May has said her racial equality audit, published today, will "hold up a mirror" to British society and "reveal uncomfortable truths." A new report by the Runnymede Trust and the Women's Budget Group, does just that.

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NHS OpenAthens

You can access a range of bibliographical databases with your NHS OpenAthens account. Sign in to see what you can access.

You can access bibliographic databases from the providers' websites. For example:

Health Education England provides links to these databases and materials to help you search effectively.

You will need to sign in to the databases with your NHS OpenAthens account.

NHS Knowledge and Library Hub

Visit Health Education England's NHS Knowledge and Library Hub for:

A single search of all the knowledge and library resources available to you, whether purchased nationally or locally.

Links to database provider websites for advanced literature searching.

A browsable list of all the journals you can access.

A list of all resources purchased nationally for the NHS in England.

You'll need to sign in with your NHS OpenAthens account to access the resources.

Help and support

For help and support using the resources listed here, or for further information, contact your local healthcare library. You can find details in the Health Library and Information Service Directory.

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Evidence search service closure information

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You can access a range of bibliographical databases with your NHS OpenAthens account. Sign in to see what you can access. You can access bibliographic databases from the providers' websites. For example: Health Education England provides links to these databases and materials to help you search effectively.

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Citizenship Foundation: What is citizenship education

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Citizenship education is about enabling people to make their own decisions and to take responsibility for their own lives and communities. And it's on the National Curriculum in England.

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About half a million children born or raised in the UK will reportedly not gain automatic citizenship after Brexit.

Previously, people born in the UK after 1983 could become British citizens automatically if one parent was British or "settled" - meaning they had lived in the UK for five years prior to their child's birth.

But, according to an upcoming documentary, thousands of these children who applied for citizenship are now being forced to wait to see if they will be awarded it.

As part of their 'Brexit' series, Channel 4 will air an episode of Dispatches entitled: 'Brexit - How to Get a British Passport,' exploring the complex process of becoming a citizen, with a focus on the ongoing uncertainty over the future of EU nationals in the UK.

The program reportedly features families in which some children have a British passport while others do not.

Since the 2016 EU referendum, has declined to guarantee the rights of the approximately three million EU nationals in Britain. Her offer to the bloc after Brexit negotiations opened was Theresa May described as "vague".

Former Chancellor George Osborne recently revealed that immediately after the referendum, there was a proposal to reassure EU citizens that they would be allowed to stay in Britain after Brexit.

Ms May was reportedly the only member of the Cabinet to block this - a move she has since denied.

The uncertainty has reportedly contributed to feelings of depression, stress and a desire to leave the UK, as well as a reluctance to move to Britain. The number of EU nurses applying to work in the UK has already plummeted by 96 per cent.

Ms May's latest offer for Europeans has been roundly criticised, with EU citizens claiming it leaves them with "fewer rights than jam".

Many Europeans living and working in the UK hope to achieve permanent residency, or even British citizenship, in order to secure their future.

Previously, EU citizens were granted permanent residency - the right to live and work in the UK without visas - after being in the UK for five years.

They were then entitled to apply for British citizenship, which affords the holder full rights of a British national, including the right to apply for a passport.

The citizenship process requires passing a 'Life in the UK Test' for those aged 18-65, giving over biometric information such as fingerprints, taking an English language exam and a submitting to judgement of 'good character'.

The entire application can cost more than £1,200, or just under £1,000 for children.

In the Dispatches episode, presenter Datshiane Navanayagam will explore the effect the struggle for citizenship can have on lives of citizens, as well as the huge costs involved in the process.

'Brexit - How to Get a British Passport' airs on Monday, 26 June.

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Half a million children born or raised in UK will not get automatic citizenship after Brexit

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About half a million children born or raised in the UK will reportedly not gain automatic citizenship after Brexit. Previously, people born in the UK after 1983 could become British citizens automatically if one parent was British or "settled" - meaning they had lived in the UK for five years prior to their child's birth.

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The researchers also found that social mobility differed with gender. Researchers noted that this was especially pronounced in the second generation black Caribbean and Chinese groups, with black Caribbean men (39.3%) and Chinese women (46.8%) experiencing lower rates of upward mobility than black Caribbean women (67.3%) or Chinese men (56.9%). They also described how second generation south-Asian men have benefitted more from upward occupational mobility than women.

Britain's ethnic minorities still face significant barriers to social mobility despite many having better qualifications than their white counterparts,

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Britain's ethnic minorities still face significant barriers to social mobility despite many having better qualifications than their white counterparts, according to researchers at the University of Manchester.

Chinese, Indian, Irish, Bangladeshi and black African students are now outperforming their white British peers in obtaining five or more GSCEs at grade A* to C, but increased attainment over the past 20 years has failed to translate into improved job outcomes, say academics from the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity.

About 43% of Chinese and 42% of Indian people had a degree-level qualification in 2011, compared with 26% of white British, while the most disadvantaged of the black and ethnic minority groups (BME) - Pakistani and Bangladeshi - had almost quadrupled their rates of degree-level qualifications since 1991.

Dr Laurence Brown, who contributed to the report, said: "It's clear that ethnic minorities in Britain are - in many cases - outperforming their white peers in both secondary and higher education. However, very few of these gains in education have translated into employment outcomes."

Black male unemployment has remained persistently double that of the white male population over the past two decades, and although self-employment is often seen as a promising route for ethnic economic advancement, for Pakistani men there is a disproportionate clustering in the transport sector - 53% of self-employed Pakistani men working in the transport industry compared to 8% of the rest of the population.

Bringing together some of Britain's largest longitudinal surveys, experts at the university defined rates of social mobility through finding the percentage who moved up or down from the occupational class of their father.

They found that 43% of white men and 45.6% white women moved up to a higher socio-economic class than their father and that in contrast, first generation black African, Indian and Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups had significantly lower upward mobility rates. Just 34.3% of first generation Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and 27.6% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women moved up from the socio-economic class of their father.

The researchers also found that social mobility differed with gender. Researchers noted that this was especially pronounced in the second generation black Caribbean and Chinese groups, with black Caribbean men (39.3%) and Chinese women (46.8%) experiencing lower rates of upward mobility than black Caribbean women (67.3%) or Chinese men (56.9%). They also described how second generation south-Asian men have benefitted more from upward occupational mobility than women.

The authors say their study shows a "need for new routes to mobility is crucial" as traditional pathways such as public sector employment have significantly narrowed over the past 20 years.

"The need for new routes to mobility is crucial given the over-exposure of ethnic minorities to deprivation and poverty in Britain, " explains Brown. "A third of Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups in England and a fifth of its Black African, Black Caribbean, and Arab populations live in the country's most deprived neighbourhoods compared with 8% of the white British population. "That is why finding new ways of enabling social mobility is a fundamental issue which needs to be tackled by policy makers."

The report, which will be presented at the House of Lords on Thursday in a seminar sponsored by Baroness Prashar, brings together education and employment research based on census analysis of ethnic groups with a considerable number of longitudinal surveys of individual experiences of social mobility.

Omar Khan, acting director of the Runnymede Trust thinktank, said: "This and previous other research has looked at other suggested explanations for why these persistent inequalities exist, but these other factors only explain part of the difference we continue to see between ethnic minorities and white British people today. This is yet another study that shows we have a long way to go to show we are a fair and society where ethnic minorities are able to fulfil their aspirations."

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Ethnic minorities face barriers to social mobility and job opportunities

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Academic success is not reflected in employment outcomes, say Manchester University researchers

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CO 40007 Analysis and Critique 2_Assessment_63986

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ROWNTREE

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What is Community Empowerment?

The Scottish Government is committed to our communities being supported to do things for themselves and to people having their voices heard in the planning and delivery of services, community engagement and participation.

What are the benefits of empowering communities?

Where communities are empowered we would expect to see a range of benefits: local democratic participation boosted; increased confidence and skills among local people; higher numbers of people volunteering in their communities; and more satisfaction with quality of life in a local neighbourhood. Better community engagement and participation leads to the delivery of better, more responsive services and better outcomes for communities.

What is the Scottish Government doing to empower communities in Scotland?

The Scottish Government is taking forward action in a number of areas and is working closely with partners to help to support and promote community empowerment and engagement.

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An opportunity to experience and put into practice the ability to facilitate and promote community and individual empowerment and to support collaborative relationships, within connecting networks. Would enable me to positively Influence individuals, to tackle exclusion and improve equality for all, through informal education and lifelong learning (Jeffs: 2005:49) or as Johnson (1988) quotes in   (Tett, 2010:1-2) “knowledge calculated to make you free”.

Jeffs, T (2005). Informal education, conversations, democracy and learning. Nottingham: Educational heretics press. 49.

Tett, L. (2010) Community Learning and Development. 3rd ed. Scotland: Dunedin Academic Press Ltd.

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acknowledge that the struggle for reform is the foundation for critical action that will aid in the process of social transformation (Allman, 2001:139). This can be achieved through taking on the role of a facilitator, to critically engage with the process of codification, to encourage critical consciousness and reflection by assessing what is happening and what can see we? To also question If we recognise where it is, who is there and how are they feeling? (Ledwith, 2016: 56).

Allman, P. (2001) Critical education against global capitalism: Karl Marx and revolutionary critical education, Westport, CT; Bergin & Garvey.

Ledwith, M. (2016) Community Development in Action: Putting Freire into practice Bristol: The Policy Press.

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Friere (1996: 48) that conscientisation as an act of reflection enables us  to become empowered and to promote change. It will allow us, as the oppressed, to analyse these concerns to develop a consensus of  hopes, ideas and concepts (Freire Institute, 2016) that aid us to be free from marginalisation and alienation.
Therefore, supporting the concept of problem-solving education and dialogical learning to promote creative thinking, and a dialogical approach to developing critical consiousness, is required (Freire,1996: 57-63), plus an acknowledgement regarding the world around us in order to identify key sites of intervention (Ledwith, 2011: 78-80) that work with collaboration strategies. Collaboration theories help illustrate the effectiveness of the approach in working towards social justice by creating what Huxham and Vangen (2005: 5-7) describe as a collaborative advantage based upon the moral imperative that large inequalities within society'

Freire, P. (1996) Pedagogy of the Oppressed London: Penguin Books.

Freire Institute. (2016) Education, Empowerment, Transformation. Concepts used by Paulo Freire. Available:

http://www.freire.org/component/easytagcloud/%20codification last accessed 16th November 2016.

Huxham, C & Vangen, S. (2005) Managing to collaborate: The theory of collaborative advantage. London: Routledge.

Ledwith, M. (2011) Community Development: A Critical Approach. Bristol: Policy Press.

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The CLD profession works with and empowers individuals and communities to increase or gain the confidence, skills and resources needed to build relationships with surrounding networks, to reduce social, political and health issues (Scottish Executive, 2004: 1-2).

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Andereck, M. (1992) Ethnic awareness and the school. Newbury Park: CA. Sage.

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Andereck, M. (1992) Ethnic awareness and the school. Newbury Park: CA. Sage.

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Social Identity Theory is a process of stereotypical views that revolve around identity, labelling and categorization, where the identity of an individual is categorised to a particular group within society based on how they are perceived or perceive themselves (Andereck, 1992).  After an individual identifies with a group within society, society itself seems to hold their group in social comparison to others which feeds the need to maintain or build upon status.

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Britain's ethnic minorities still face significant barriers to social mobility despite many having better qualifications than their white counterparts, according to researchers at the University of Manchester.

Chinese, Indian, Irish, Bangladeshi and black African students are now outperforming their white British peers in obtaining five or more GSCEs at grade A* to C, but increased attainment over the past 20 years has failed to translate into improved job outcomes, say academics from the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity.

About 43% of Chinese and 42% of Indian people had a degree-level qualification in 2011, compared with 26% of white British, while the most disadvantaged of the black and ethnic minority groups (BME) - Pakistani and Bangladeshi - had almost quadrupled their rates of degree-level qualifications since 1991.

Dr Laurence Brown, who contributed to the report, said: "It's clear that ethnic minorities in Britain are - in many cases - outperforming their white peers in both secondary and higher education. However, very few of these gains in education have translated into employment outcomes."

Black male unemployment has remained persistently double that of the white male population over the past two decades, and although self-employment is often seen as a promising route for ethnic economic advancement, for Pakistani men there is a disproportionate clustering in the transport sector - 53% of self-employed Pakistani men working in the transport industry compared to 8% of the rest of the population.

Bringing together some of Britain's largest longitudinal surveys, experts at the university defined rates of social mobility through finding the percentage who moved up or down from the occupational class of their father.

They found that 43% of white men and 45.6% white women moved up to a higher socio-economic class than their father and that in contrast, first generation black African, Indian and Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups had significantly lower upward mobility rates. Just 34.3% of first generation Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and 27.6% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women moved up from the socio-economic class of their father.

The researchers also found that social mobility differed with gender. Researchers noted that this was especially pronounced in the second generation black Caribbean and Chinese groups, with black Caribbean men (39.3%) and Chinese women (46.8%) experiencing lower rates of upward mobility than black Caribbean women (67.3%) or Chinese men (56.9%). They also described how second generation south-Asian men have benefitted more from upward occupational mobility than women.

The authors say their study shows a "need for new routes to mobility is crucial" as traditional pathways such as public sector employment have significantly narrowed over the past 20 years.

"The need for new routes to mobility is crucial given the over-exposure of ethnic minorities to deprivation and poverty in Britain, " explains Brown. "A third of Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups in England and a fifth of its Black African, Black Caribbean, and Arab populations live in the country's most deprived neighbourhoods compared with 8% of the white British population. "That is why finding new ways of enabling social mobility is a fundamental issue which needs to be tackled by policy makers."

The report, which will be presented at the House of Lords on Thursday in a seminar sponsored by Baroness Prashar, brings together education and employment research based on census analysis of ethnic groups with a considerable number of longitudinal surveys of individual experiences of social mobility.

Omar Khan, acting director of the Runnymede Trust thinktank, said: "This and previous other research has looked at other suggested explanations for why these persistent inequalities exist, but these other factors only explain part of the difference we continue to see between ethnic minorities and white British people today. This is yet another study that shows we have a long way to go to show we are a fair and society where ethnic minorities are able to fulfil their aspirations."

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Ethnic minorities face barriers to social mobility and job opportunities

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Academic success is not reflected in employment outcomes, say Manchester University researchers

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Abstract
This paper critically evaluates competing explanations for the participation of ethnic minority groups in informal employment. These interpret their participation either through a structuralist lens arising out of 'exclusion' from formal employment or through a neo-liberal and/or post-structuralist lens driven by voluntary 'exit' from formal institutions. To evaluate critically these competing explanations, this paper reports a survey of the experiences of Pakistani immigrants in informal employment in Sheffield, including fifty face-to-face interviews and two focus groups. The findings highlight informal employment amongst this Pakistani ethnic minority group is neither universally driven by exclusion nor exit. Instead, some participate mostly due to exclusion, others mostly for exit rationales and some for a combination of the two, with different mixtures across different groups and types of informal employment. The outcome is a call for greater appreciation of the multifarious character of undeclared work and a move beyond simplistic explanations and policy responses.

1. Introduction

For many decades, the informal economy was seen as a 'leftover' from a pre-capitalist era, which would disappear with the advent of 'modernisation' (Williams ). From this perspective, the persistence of informal employment was a manifestation of 'backwardness' and 'underdevelopment' (e.g. Geertz (1963) 1963 Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, Glencoe: Free Press. ). Recently, however, it has been recognised that the informal economy remains a persistent and even growing feature of the global economy (e.g. Williams , ; Rodgers and Williams ). How, therefore, is this continuing and growing participation of populations in informal employment to be explained? The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the various competing explanations.

Immigrant and migrant communities within the so-called 'ethnic economy' (Batnitzky and McDowell ), now contribute greatly to economy practices within urban centres in the UK (Edwards et al. ). Migrants arriving in a new country are often characterised by having a strong sense of self-sufficiency, which often leads to such individuals moving into forms of self-employment in order to develop a means of 'getting by and getting on' in the new environment (Sepulveda et al. ). There have been several theoretical approaches developed, seeking to explain why immigrants become entrepreneurs in the new, host country. It has been argued that whilst some differences can be explained by age, levels of education and the time spent in the new country, nevertheless, an individual's ethnic background plays a significant role in determining practices of entrepreneurship (Fairlie and Meyer ). As such, ethnic characteristics act as drivers for some immigrant groups to be more entrepreneurial than others including the ability to develop entrepreneurial strategies effectively (Chaganti and Greene ), or use their ethnic resources (access to social capital and an embedded network) in the new country (Koning and Verver ). Such individuals are keen and ready to take risks and often take opportunities, which members of the indigenous population in the new, host country fail to see or seize. Moreover, it is argued these individuals quickly exploit the underdeveloped markets which have emerged within 'ethnic enclaves' (Koning and Verver ) within the host country, using their access to ethnic and migrant networks and access to informal sources of finance and labour through ethnic ties and/or shared cultural values and language use (Vershinina et al. ). In contrast, more 'structuralist' readings explain how immigrants, faced with a series of labour market obstacles are pushed into self-employment and entrepreneurial activities (Gilad and Levine ). Such individuals often face discrimination from the indigenous population, lack relevant cultural knowledge and skills in the host country (language skills) and also to access to host-country relevant social capital (social and business networks) (Neville et al. ). As such, for these individuals, developing forms of entrepreneurial activities is thus viewed as a survival strategy, which involves relying on the social capital of their ethnic group (Drori et al. ) in the absence of any other relevant economic options.

Sassen () argues that globalisation has led to an increase in informal work existing not only in the global south or in the margins of urban areas. Observing informal work practices within the creative sector, Sassen () argues that informal work has become an integral part of the functioning of urban areas all across the globe. Within urban areas, informal work is often characterised as pursued by migrant communities with low wages or poor working conditions (Routh ). In a recent study of immigrant work experiences in Toronto, Gottfried et al. () highlight how the increase in precarious, insecure work lacking employment protection requires migrant communities to rely on informal work practices. However, other commentators have outlined alternative rationales for individuals engaging in informal work practices. Phillips () argues that working within informal spaces can enable individuals to undertake their formal work as well as improving levels of work autonomy. Moreover, Edwards et al. () in a study of new migrant businesses in the West Midlands, UK, highlight how in addition to the monetary aspects, informal work practices act as important mechanisms in maintaining positive community and social relations in often ethnically mixed, low income urban areas. This paper contributes to this nascent literature by providing empirical insights from the experiences of the Pakistani community in Sheffield, UK. Hence this paper sheds light on the everyday experiences of individuals within the UK's 'ethnic economy' (Batnitzky and McDowell ).

The paper is structured as follows. To commence, various rival explanations for participation in informal employment are introduced which is followed by an outline of the research study, which involved a survey conducted amongst the Pakistani community in the UK city of Sheffield during 2012 based on 50 face-to-face interviews and two focus groups. The third section reports the findings, which highlights not only the normality of informal employment amongst this ethnic minority population but also how participation is not the result of either exit or exclusion but instead, how some is conducted due to exit, some due to exclusion and some for both reasons. The paper concludes by calling for a move beyond either/or explanations and instead a greater appreciation of the heterogeneous nature of undeclared work and the required policy solutions.

2. Explaining participation in informal employment

In this paper, we refer to informal work as the remunerated production of legal goods and services that is not fully declared to the state for tax, social security and labour law purposes when it should be declared (e.g. Jones OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2002) et al. ; OECD 2002 Measuring the Non-observed Economy, Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. ; Ram et al. ; Williams , ; Williams and Windebank ). We exclude any economic activity, which possesses other absences or insufficiencies, such as that the good and/or service traded is illegal, or that no money changes hands.

During much of the twentieth century, informal employment was commonly depicted as a residue from a previous era. Its continuing presence was seen to be a sign of 'backwardness' whilst the formal economy represented 'progress' and 'advancement' (Geertz (1963) OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2002) 1963 2002 Measuring the Non-observed Economy, Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. ), highlights how two-thirds (1.8 billion) of the globe's working population work in the informal economy (Jütting and Laiglesia ). This finding outlining the extensive nature of the informal economy is further reinforced by many other smaller-scale studies in both advanced economies, post-socialist societies and the developing world that measure its scale using either indirect proxy indicators (Schneider and Bajada ) or direct survey methods (Guha-Khasnobis and Kanbur ). Whilst in the developing world, the informal economy is often found to be the mainstream economy (Jütting and Laiglesia ), nevertheless, in the developed world too, informality is currently still estimated to account for average GDP shares of 18.4% in the EU27 and 8.6% in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United States (Schneider and Enste ). Extant research on the nature of informal employment has led to a more contextualised appreciation of informal employment, as widespread and growing in some populations, but smaller and declining in others (Sepulveda and Syrett ). The outcome is that various attempts have been made to explain the persistence and growth of informal employment, involving and unpacking of the different varieties of forms of informal employment. Until now, commentators have largely adopted one of two broad perspectives. Either they have adopted a structuralist perspective which reads its persistence and growth as driven by labourers 'exclusion' from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy, or adopted one of several schools that explain its continuation and expansion as driven more by a voluntary decision to 'exit' the formal economy. Here, each is critically briefly reviewed in turn. Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, Glencoe: Free Press. ). In recent decades, however, numerous studies have revealed not only that informal employment is extensive and persistent but also that it is growing relative to formal employment in many populations (OECD

2.1. Participation in informal employment: a result of exclusion

For structuralists, the contemporary growth of informal employment is the outcome of the advent of a de-regulated open world economy with unregulated work conducted under 'sweatshop-like' conditions by marginalised populations excluded from the formal labour market who conduct such work out of necessity (Sassen ). Informal employment is therefore depicted to be at the bottom of a hierarchy of types of employment and akin to 'downgraded labour' with its participants receiving few benefits, low wages and with poor working conditions (Sassen ).

2.2. Participation in informal employment: an exit tactic

For others, informal employment is the result of a decision to voluntary exit from the legitimate realm, rather than a product of involuntary exclusion (Gerxhani (2004) "The Informal Sector in Developed and Less Developed Countries: A Literature Survey," 2004 Public Choice 120(3/4): 267-300.10.1023/B:PUCH.0000044287.88147.5e ; Maloney ). Conventionally, this has been usually advocated by neo-liberals who have depicted informal workers as heroes who are casting off the shackles of a burdensome state (De Soto ). For them, over-regulation of the market is to blame for its existence (De Soto ). As De Soto (: 255) asserts, 'the real problem is not so much informality as formality'. Informal employment is the last bastion of untrammelled enterprise culture in an over-regulated economic system, and its recent growth evidence of the resurgence of the free market against state regulation.

More recently, however, an alternative 'exit' perspective has emerged taking inspiration from a wider collection of critical, post-colonial, post-structuralist, post-development and post-capitalist thought that transcends the conventional 'thin' depiction of monetary exchange as universally market-like and profit-motivated by adopting 'thicker' representations that unpack the complex and messy characters and logics of monetised transactions (Gibson-Graham , ). The outcome is a post-structuralist explanation for the growth of informal employment that moves beyond its 'thin' depiction as market-like profit-motivated work, and participants as everywhere rational economic actors swayed by the cost/benefit ratios confronting them. Instead, it draws attention to informal employment conducted for and by kin, neighbours, friends and acquaintances and for reasons other than purely financial gain (Williams Williams, C. C. (2004) 2004 Cash-in-hand Work: The Underground Sector and the Hidden Economy of Favours, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230506190 , ). For these post-structuralists, in consequence, informal employment is again the result of exit rather than exclusion, but instead of depicting the rationale for exit to be the problems associated with working legitimately (like neo-liberals), this post-structuralist school explains participation more in terms of social or redistributive rationales than pure market logics, viewing participants more as social actors rather than rational economic actors.

Until now, these competing explanations have been largely treated as mutually exclusive. Commentators have either advocated one as universally valid and not even mentioned the others, or have paid lip service to the others but contended that one is correct (De Soto ). However, in recent years, some commentators have begun to call for greater integration of these explanations by arguing either that 'exclusion' is more applicable to waged informal employment and 'exit' to own-account informal workers or that exclusion is relevant to relatively deprived populations and exit to relatively affluent groups (Williams and Windebank ). Until now, nevertheless, few studies have sought to evaluate the validity of these more integrative explanations and such an explanatory conceptual framework has not been applied to understanding the participation of ethnic minority groups in undeclared work. In consequence, and to evaluate critically not only the persistence and growth of informal employment but also the competing explanations, attention now turns to a survey conducted during 2008 amongst the Pakistani ethnic minority community in Sheffield.

3. The research study

We generated data from Pakistani households in Sheffield. During the industrial age Sheffield gained an international reputation as a centre for metallurgy. However, deindustrialisation led to the stagnation of the region's economy in the 1980s (Sheffield City Region Sheffield City Region (2010) 2010 Shaping the Future of the Sheffield City Region Economy. Available at: http://www.sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/general-documents ). Since then, as a result of diversification of the economic base, Sheffield's economy has begun to grow once more. However, the Sheffield City Region remains one of the least competitive city region economies in the UK (Huggins and Thompson ). Following a pilot survey in November 2011, 50 face-to-face interviews were conducted with Pakistani households in Sheffield during January-March 2012. In Sheffield, according to the Census UK (2001), people of Pakistani national origins are the largest ethnic minority group. The size of the Pakistani community amounts to more than 15,000 residents, of which 9,799 people are aged above sixteen and economically active, and hence defines the target population for this study.

Given the sensitivity of the research topic, face-to-face interviews were conducted. To tackle the issue of trust, a 'snowball sampling' technique was used. Snowball sampling is a method particularly useful for accessing 'hidden' populations, and for small sample sizes and has been widely used to undertake survey studies of the informal economy, especially in the context of ethnic minority and immigrant populations (e.g. Ram Vershinina, N. , , and (2009) Sheffield City Council (2006) et al. ; Ram et al. ; Vershinina et al. 2009 Polish Immigrants in Leicester: Forms of Capital Underpinning Entrepreneurial Activity (Leicester Business School Occasional Paper 86), Leicester: De Montfort University. ). To gain a diversified sample, the Pakistani community in Sheffield was divided into three major clusters (see Table ¹ Community Profile, Pakistani, 2006 Community Profile - Pakistani. Available at: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/policy-performance/how-we-will-deliver/other-strategies-plans-and-policies/equality-and-diversity/community-profiling.html by Sheffield City Council. View all notes are explained by a tendency of Pakistani residents in Sheffield to reside in 'segregated' and 'concentrated' neighbourhoods. To further improve the diversity of the sample, multiple snowballs were triggered simultaneously in more than one locality of each cluster by seeking new contacts within the Pakistani community. The researchers identified initial contacts in each locality with the aid of approaching some influential institutions within community mosques, Pakistan Muslim Community Centre (PMC) and Pakistani Community Advise Centre. As such, the survey comprised of individuals representing a heterogeneous mix of Pakistani households in terms of age, income, occupation, nationality and qualification (see Table 1). The emergence of these clusters, as investigated by the Sheffield City Council, 2).

A semi-structured interview schedule was used using a mix of open-ended and closed-ended questions (see Appendix A). Every interview started with a conversation including questions about Pakistani culture with the Pakistani background of one of the researchers proving very helpful in building rapport. Second, demographic data was gathered on the household. Third, closed-ended questions were asked related to their general perception about the magnitude of informal work within Sheffield's Pakistani community. Fourthly, a set of closed-ended questions was used to directly ask the respondents about their personal engagement in informal employment. Finally, the respondents were asked about the reasons for their engagement in informal work. Here, initially a closed-ended question with a list of possible reasons was posed to the respondents who were asked to choose the 'first' and 'second' most important reasons for their involvement in informal work from the given list of options. Subsequently, the respondents were asked in an open-ended manner to explain the rationale for their responses. Different probing questions were asked during the conversation to guide the discussion and gain insights about the underlying rationales explained by each respondent (see Appendix A). Each interview, on average, lasted for 75 min.

4. Results and discussion

The participants of the survey were asked in a closed-ended manner to choose from a given list 'the first and second most important reason(s) for them to keep total or a part of their income hidden from tax and social security authorities', followed by lengthy open-ended discussions to allow them to dwell on their chosen reasons. Their responses were then classified (Table 3), according to whether they conform largely to the 'exit' explanations as proposed in the neo-liberal or post-structuralist accounts or the 'exclusion' explanations as suggested by the structuralist account. The results highlight a diverse spectrum of rationales, reflecting the co-existence of both the exit and exclusion factors behind the participation of Pakistani households in informal employment. The following section discusses these reasons in the framework of contesting theorisations in the light of the qualitative evidence gathered during the survey.

4.1. Exit rationales the neo-liberal reasons

Respondents participated in informal economic activities predominantly as a response to the over-regulated realm of the formal economy. As discussed below, there is an element of 'voluntary exit' from formal employment with respondents asserting that engage in informal activities either: because they believe taxes are too high; or the procedures of tax authorities are very complicated/poorly controlled, leading to a low perceived risk of detection. Added together, these rationales account for the main reason of participation in informal employment for more than half (52%) of the Pakistani households. Each of these neo-liberal motives is now sequentially discussed.

4.1.1. High tax rates

The survey outlines the 'exorbitance of taxes' as the most instrumental factor driving voluntary participation in informal practices. Forty per cent of respondents mentioned 'taxes are too high' as one of the major reasons for their participation in informal employment. The following statements given by the respondents are quite suggestive of the taxes as the primary reason for the Pakistani immigrants in Sheffield to keep their income hidden from relevant authorities.

4.1.2. Procedural complications

Pakistani workers also found the process of formalisation to be very complicated. 10% of interviewees viewed complicated tax procedures as one of the biggest obstructions for Pakistani informal workers to declare fully their incomes. As stated by some participants,

Some of the Pakistani workers were quite forthcoming in expressing their desire to formalise their businesses and employment contingent upon state's willingness to reduce the complications of the registration procedure by introducing a one-window system and offer special support services for immigrants to seek guidance on such affairs. As asserted by some respondents,

4.1.3. Low risk of detection

Whilst the UK is seen as an institutional environment where the 'rule of law' prevails, surprisingly, however, when asked about the risk of detection involved in operating informally, a significant percentage (40%) of the Pakistani respondents thought that it was either easy or very easy for anyone to remain undetected by state authorities in the UK. Nevertheless, only a small fraction of these workers (2%), mentioned it as a major reason for their own informality. As expressed by a few respondents,

For these Pakistani workers, it is their low perceived risk of detection that has led them to work informally. They are clearly acting as rational economic actors, continuously evaluating the economic benefits of operating on an informal basis vs. the monetary and legal penalties that they may have to face in the event of being caught.

4.2. Exit rationales: post-structuralist reasons

Aligned with assumptions within post-structuralist theorisations, the second most important theme that emerges from rationales to engage in informal employment is that of 'social' and 'redistributive' reasons. More than one-third (34%) of the respondents described either of these reasons as a major rationale for them to work informally. Such respondents whilst viewing their informal employment as an 'exit' from the formal economy, adopted a post-structuralist perspective asserting that they engage in informal activities either: because it was a common form of work in their community; or it helped them improve their social integration and/or they believed that the government do not fairly use taxes and other contributions for the welfare of their community.

4.2.1. Informal employment as a cultural norm

The most common of these post-structuralist reasons relates to the prevailing work culture of the Pakistani community in Sheffield. Eighteen per cent of respondents mentioned it as the primary reason for the informal employment. Informal work of these households can be seen as a product of community culture that is comprised of certain norms and values propagating informal economic activities. In the case of the Pakistani community, the transfer of low tax morality from the home country caused first wave immigrants to participate actively in informal employment, which has been replicated as a kind of career path for subsequent generations.

The concept of 'cultural alienation', seems to find an ideal illustration here. Dense social/community networks, which are often a major contributory factor in explaining high levels of informal work (Morris ), together with segregation from regional labour markets and other ethnic populations has not enabled the subsequent generations of Pakistani immigrants to shift practices enacted by initial compatriots. As such, informal work is still widely perceived as a 'community practice' instead of explained by socio-economic factors (see also, Community profile, Pakistani, Sheffield City Council (2006) 2006 Community Profile - Pakistani. Available at: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/policy-performance/how-we-will-deliver/other-strategies-plans-and-policies/equality-and-diversity/community-profiling.html ). A considerable fraction of Pakistani households, including both formal and informal workers, viewed engagement in informal work as a form of social construct. As shared by some respondents,

The prevalence of informal work as a powerful cultural norm amongst respondents is a consequence of historical concentration in specific sectors including taxi-driving, low-order retailing and catering. Around 80% of all the Pakistani workers who had ever carried out informal work, either as an employee or on a self-employed basis, did so in one of these three sectors. As such, the engagement in these sectors, which are prone to cash-in-hand work is now so deeply entrenched into their community culture in Sheffield that it has lead to the development of a self-recruiting labour market, where an unemployed or a newly arrived Pakistani worker becomes more likely to be recruited by his co-ethnic employer into informal work. As expressed by one Pakistani doctor who had worked in various cities of the UK for almost 10 years:

Moreover, the promotion of chain migration and the introduction of new passport entitlements by the UK government have made migration heavily localised since the early 1960s. Under these new immigration rules, it is easier for people from specific localities/families in Pakistan to make it through stringent immigration laws. The job choice for many Pakistani workers, especially for the ones arriving through family reunification, marriage or illegal routes, therefore, is restricted to the forms of employment already prevalent in the Pakistani community. As a result, one can witness a strong 'cultural tendency' for the Pakistani households surveyed in Sheffield towards certain forms of economic activities that are more vulnerable for informal work.

4.2.2. Informal employment as a source of community integration

Whilst there appears to be a strong role for cultural traditions influencing Pakistani households to undertake informal economic activities, what is it that makes them comply with these pervasive cultural norms within their ethnic community? The respondents of the survey recorded a clear connotation of certain social incentives expressed in their responses.

Twelve per cent of the Pakistani households viewed their informal employment as a basic means of community integration, and hence mentioned it as a main reason for their participation in such activities. Engagement in informal employment is obviously a means of building social and ethnic capital, which in the long term also becomes a decisive factor for their economic success or failure in the UK. Evidently, a considerable fraction of the Pakistani households surveyed in this study draws their prime motivation from certain socially driven factors existing within their ethnic community. So strong are these social regulators that they tend to subdue the workers' economic motivations on many occasions. One can certainly see an element of volunteerism for these Pakistani workers to choose an informal mode of employment, instead of formal, either to show compliance with the prevailing ethnic norms or to seek better cohesion with their co-ethnic members.

4.2.3. Informal employment as an expression of resentment against the state

Interestingly, some 6% of the Pakistani households adopted a different post-structuralist explanation, citing redistributive and resistance rationales as one of the most important reasons for participation in informal employment. Informal employment here can be seen as a direct repercussion of their 'anti-state' sentiment in that they believe that the British government does not fairly use its taxes to assist ethnic minority communities. Some of the bold expressions are:

Even the Pakistanis working as formal employees seemed to confirm the existence of an anti-state sentiment as a rationale for their co-ethnic workers to operate in the informal economy. As stated by one respondent:

Furthermore, it was discovered that due to this perceived lack of redistributive justice on the part of certain Pakistani households, there seems to be a sense of 'rightfulness' prevailing amongst the respondents of this study, where some Pakistani workers were found to believe that 'it is our right to evade some taxes', 'we already give too much to the government', 'I deserve to save on taxes'. When asked if they consider it acceptable to evade taxes in the UK, 44% thought it either 'totally acceptable' (4%) or 'somewhat acceptable' (40%) to do so, hinting at the existing sense of resentment against the state within a limited section of the Pakistani community. The prevalence of such negative attitudes has lead to the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which the tendency of the Pakistanis to view themselves as victims of state negligence is what is causing their voluntary engagement in informal economic activities as supported by the post-structuralist perspective (Williams Williams, C. C. (2010) "Out of Shadows: Explaining the Undeclared Economy in Baltic Countries," 2010 Journal of Baltic Studies 41(1): 3-22.10.1080/01629770903525282 ).

4.3. Exclusion rationales: the structuralist perspective

Nevertheless, the participation of the Pakistani community, as supported by structuralist theorisations cannot be perfectly explained along the lines of voluntarism. There is a section of Pakistani households for whom the participation in informal economic activities is not a matter of choice, but rather a result of some exclusionary pressures and marginalisation. The exclusion rationale refers to those Pakistani workers who asserted that they engage in informal employment either: because they believe that ethnic minorities are not given equal opportunities in the formal job market; or they lack the human capital required for a formal job and/or that they do so under the financial pressures of their family. Overall, (16%) of the respondents mentioned one of these factors as a major reason for their involvement in informal economic activities.

4.3.1. Discrimination against ethnic minorities

Almost (5%) of the respondents mentioned the lack of equal opportunities in the formal sector as the first most important reason to seek employment in the informal economy. The qualitative discussions recorded much more emphasis on the point of 'discrimination against ethnic minorities'. Majority of them, however, described it as 'hidden discrimination', something that they believe does not always exist in very discernible forms, but rather in certain implicit ways, creating barriers for ethnic minority workers to enter the formal labour market.

The survey also records a slight expression of resentment against job discrimination amongst those Pakistani households who themselves were otherwise employed in the formal sector.

4.3.2. Lack of human capital

The exclusion of Pakistani workers from the formal labour cannot be a fully attributed to the logics of discrimination as expressed by some respondents above. Our findings also revealed the existence of certain institutional barriers, such as the lack of qualifications and skills impeding gaining formal employment. Only 5% attributed their involvement in informal employment to their personal lack of qualification and/or skill. Expressing the marginalisation of Pakistani workers due to insufficient human capital, one of the interviewees said:

Another respondent also shared his personal experience as of how he ended being an informal taxi driver in the UK despite the fact that he was a professional plumber in his home country.

It can be suggested from the above narrative that deficiency of these Pakistani workers in terms of human capital (skills and qualification) has not only excluded them from the formal economy and forced them to eke out their living in the informal sector, but has also restricted to their informal employment majorly to a handful of trades.

4.3.3. Pressure from family members and relatives

Almost 4% of respondents explained their participation in informal employment as mainly a result of certain pressures from family/relatives. This reason, however, was only limited to immigrants who had recently arrived in the UK and yet had their families based in Pakistan. It is revealed that extreme pressures from family and relatives play a phenomenal role in persuading new immigrants to work on a cash-in-hand basis. A couple of newly arrived Pakistani households were quite regretful in sharing their views on how pressures from their families in Pakistan were so intimidating in the beginning as to make them conduct informal work.

Such incidents of involuntary participation motivated by economic necessity represents a kind of self-created impulse, which brings Pakistani workers to the UK irrespective of the available employment opportunities. Such motives of migration for the Pakistanis, as discovered in the survey, are seldom based on the actual demand of labour in the British labour market. Excessive influx of Pakistani workers leaves many of them redundant on their arrival in the UK, instigating sheer disappointment and frustration. Many respondents were forthcoming in expressing the collapse of their economic expectations on their arrival in the UK, which they now believe were structured around false motivations.

In these responses, there are strong connotations of both 'disappointment' and 'intimidation' - the disappointment of losing false expectations and the intimidation of families and relatives to earn money. Prolonged period of unemployment often lead to immense pressures from families in the case of households who still have their families based in Pakistan. Coupled with this is the element of internal de-motivation and frustration arising from being unable to find a decent job on arrival. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, most of these Pakistani households tend to perceive or have actually experienced, what they term 'strong racism' in the formal sector of the UK. Resultantly, for these Pakistani households, as argued by the proponents of the structuralist theory, their engagement in informal work seems to be a direct result of their involuntary exclusion from the mainstream British economy. Informal work functions as a survival strategy for these Pakistani workers in order to denounce the repercussions of their economic marginalisation in the UK.

Based on these results, one can suggest that it is mainly the exit rationale as proposed by the neo-liberal theorisations that explains the majority participation of Pakistani households in informal employment. Nonetheless, the profound existence of post-structuralist and structuralist expressions alongside shows that no single theorisation, either exit or exclusion, can solely capture the complexity of the Pakistani households' motives to participate in such economic endeavours. In fact, the in-depth qualitative inquiry has also revealed that a considerable number of the Pakistani households in Sheffield tend to cite rationales from two or more explanations at a time. Also, when the respondents were asked to choose their first and second most important reasons to hide their income from tax and social security authorities, a considerable number of them chose reasons from two different explanations, as depicted in Table 4. Almost 50% of the respondents cite reasons from two different explanations, combining assertions about how it is an economic necessity with issues of high tax rates and over-regulation in the formal economy or the social, redistributive and resistance rationales of post-structuralism.

5. Conclusions

This paper has critically engaged with the relevance of various theorisations of the informal economy - structuralist, neo-liberal and post-structuralist theories in explaining the nature of informal employment within an ethnic minority population in Sheffield, UK. The results highlight that no single theory has been found to fully explain the reasons behind the participation of Pakistani households in informal economic activities. It is a cocktail of many interlinking factors causing these Pakistani immigrants to participate in paid informal work.

Nevertheless, the neo-liberal theorisation tends to dominate the explanation for the participation of Pakistani households in paid informal work, explained as a direct implication of either an over-regulated market or excessive institutional obligations; or the total failure of the formal sector to meet their certain requirements. The majority of informal work under these factors is seen as taking place on a 'voluntary' basis either to unshackle the restrictive controls of the state or to replete for the shortcomings of the formal sector. For most of the respondents, their decision to transcend the parameters of business legalities is basically driven to gain the 'flexibility' and 'freedom' deemed essential for the sustenance and growth of their economic activities in the UK. However, this voluntary exit on the part of Pakistani households is primarily structured around their urge to maximise economic gains.

However, it would be erroneous for one to totally undermine the significance of rationales grounded in the conventional narratives of the structuralist theory. On many occasions, the participation of Pakistani workers in the informal sector is found to be an implication of their involuntary exclusion from the formal market, often undertaken as a survival strategy. Discrimination against ethnic minority workers in formal employment coupled with prevailing familial pressures from relatives back home, which in turn are the outcome of certain economic liabilities, are also the major reason for certain Pakistani workers to undertake informal work. Economic activities undertaken as a result of such factors are often informal in nature and characterised by low-paid exploitative work. The role of social pressures emanating from their respective families in Pakistan, as asserted by this research, cannot be understated as an important reason for the involuntary participation of Pakistani immigrants in paid informal work.

Is this participation in informal work - voluntary and involuntary - universally driven by structural forces as a pursuit of economic gains? It seems not. The findings provide evidence in support of the newly emerging discourse of post-structuralism. A reasonable fraction of Pakistani households tend to draw their primary motivation from what can fairly be said a socially-driven rationale, i.e. informal work is the most common form of economic activity in the culture of the Pakistani community. This participation of Pakistani households under the influence of certain socio-cultural determinants is undoubtedly a case of voluntary exit, yet unlike the neo-liberal thesis, not primarily a pursuit of economic gains. The findings also provide evidence to question the conventional perspective of informal economic activities as always conducted under solely market-like and profit-motivated work relations. A good deal of informal activities undertaken by Pakistani households, and as argued by post-structuralism, is grounded in rationales far exceeding the conventional modes of market trading.

Overall this study concludes that no single approach is able to wholly theorise the reasons for the Pakistani community to undertake informal economic activities. Neither can we describe them as purely voluntary actions nor always a ramification of their involuntary exclusion from the formal sector. Similarly, one can find in this study the evidence for both social as well as economic determinants of the informal economy. In consequence, and as also argued by Williams and Round () and Williams (), the mutually exclusive character of the structuralist, neo-liberal and post-structuralist theories is strongly contested, with of course the neo-liberal theory explaining the bulk of the Pakistani informal economy. On the whole, all these theorisations are found to be coexisting within the given context, each describing a different percentage of informal work conducted by Pakistani immigrants. This finding has doubtless contributed to the desperate gap of empirical evidence on the rationales causing an alarming engagement of ethnic minority and immigrant populations in informal economic activities in the UK. At the same time, it has brought into question the mono-causal explanations of the informal economy in the wider literature. As such, this study calls for the need to conduct more qualitative studies on various ethnic minority populations in order to examine the emerging framework of structuralist, neo-liberal and post-structuralist theories in the context of the wider immigrant informal economy.

Our conclusions however have to be seen in light of the limitations of this study. The study is localised geographically within the Sheffield City Region in the North of England and involved a relatively small number of Pakistanis during our interviews. Further research needs to look at other geographically areas and other ethnics groups in the same geographical area. Whilst the views of the interviewees cannot be considered to be representative of all members of the Pakistani community, which limits the generalisability of the findings, the value of this research lies in the rich contextual insights it provides relating to the nature of informal work practices within an urban ethnic minority community in the UK. However, more research amongst other large ethnic minority communities living in different urban and rural centres in the UK is required. In this way, we can seek to capture the rationales of ethnic minority workers for their participation in informal work practices in the changing dynamics of the current socio-economic environment in the UK.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Muhammad Shehryar Shahid, (Lead Author) is an assistant professor of Entrepreneurship at Lahore University of Management Sciences. His research interests include informal entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial orientations.

Peter Rodgers, (Corresponding author) is a lecturer of Strategy and International Business at Sheffield University Management School. His research interests include the nature of informal economic practices, migrant entrepreneurship and non-market strategies.

Colin C. Williams is a professor of Public Policy at Sheffield University Management School. His research interests include the nature of undeclared work and re-theorising the nature of economic development.

Reasons for engagement in informal employment

Type of rationale

Theoretical explanation

% of all Pakistani workers

Marginalisation

Exclusion perspective/structuralism

14

Rational economic decision

Exit perspective/neo-liberalism

52

Social/redistributive rationale

Exit perspective/post-structuralism

34

Solely structuralist rationales

2

Mainly structuralist but also neo-liberal rationales

10

Mainly structuralist but also post-structuralist rationales

2

Solely neo-liberal explanation

30

Mainly neo-liberal but also structuralist rationales

7

Mainly neo-liberal but also post-structuralist rationales

15

Solely post-structuralist explanations

18

Mainly post-structuralist but also structuralist rationales

6

Mainly post-structuralist but also neo-liberal rationales

10

Section 1: Demographics

1. What is your age?

2. What is your current occupation?

3. Are you self-employed?

4. Do you work on a full-time or part-time basis?

5. What is your average income from your current occupation(s)?

6. What is your country of origin?

7. Are you a British nationality holder?

8. Which area of Sheffield do you live in?

Section 2: Perceived Magnitude of Informal Employment

1. In your view, what percentage of Pakistani households in Sheffield work without declaring total or a part of their income to tax and social security authorities?

2. Do you personally know any Pakistani in Sheffield who works without declaring total or a part of their income to tax and social security authorities?

3. What type of Pakistani households is most likely to conduct informal work: paid employees, self-employed, students, unemployed?

Section 3: Extent of Personal Participation in Informal Employment

1. Have you ever carried out any work for yourself or any other person in which total or a part of your income was kept hidden from tax and social security authorities?

2. Would you please mention three different types of work, starting with the most important one in terms of hours spent, that you carried out by keeping total or a part of your income hidden from tax and social security authorities?

3. Did you carry out this work on a part-time or full-time basis? In what form was this work paid, cash or in-kind?

Section 4: Reasons for Participation Informal Employment

1. Amongst the given options, what are the reasons for you to keep total or a part of your income undeclared to tax and social security authorities?

2. If you have never been engaged in informal work yourself, what do you think are the reasons for other Pakistani households in Sheffield to keep total or a part of your income undeclared to tax and social security authorities amongst the given options?

Section 5: Open-ended Questions about the Rationale for Participation in Informal Employment

1. Would you please elaborate on the reasons you just mentioned about why you would keep total or a part of your income undeclared to tax and social security authorities?

2. What is the perception of the Pakistani households in Sheffield about the fairness of the tax and social security system in the UK, why is it so?

3. Do you think it is more likely for a newly arrived Pakistani immigrant in Sheffield to get involved in informal employment, why or why not?

4. How do you see the involvement of Pakistani households in formal sector jobs with respect to other ethnic minority communities in the UK?

5. Why didn't you ever apply for a formal sector job?

6. Are there any social or cultural benefits to work on an informal basis for the Pakistanis in Sheffield?

Notes

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Evaluating the participation of an ethnic minority group in informal employment: a product of exit or exclusion?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abstract This paper critically evaluates competing explanations for the participation of ethnic minority groups in informal employment. These interpret their participation either through a structuralist lens arising out of 'exclusion' from formal employment or through a neo-liberal and/or post-structuralist lens driven by voluntary 'exit' from formal institutions.