Search results

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether the acceptability of different types of business- and individual-level non-compliance has different impacts on the likelihood of participation in undeclared work.

To evaluate this, data is reported on the EU27 and the UK from the special Eurobarometer survey no. 498, using a novel statistical methodology that deals with two potential sources of bias: sample selection error (avoidance to answer to the question about participation to undeclared work) and misclassification in the response variable (false statements about engagement in undeclared work).

This reveals the association between tax morale and participation in undeclared work. It shows that citizens find far more unacceptable undeclared work conducted by firms than individuals, but both are significantly associated with participation in undeclared work although the greatest effect is clearly exerted by individual-level tax morale.

This paper uses a methodology that accounts for the potential bias related to sample selection error and misclassification in the response variable of participation in undeclared work and sheds light on different components of tax morale.

For many decades, European national governments sought to stamp out undeclared work using a repressive approach. In the changing economic context of declining employment participation rates, however, the European Commission has called for a new approach to transform undeclared work into declared work. This necessitates public policy innovations. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which this European Commission call for policy innovation has been adopted by European national governments.

To evaluate this, the results are reported of an e‐survey conducted in 2010 of 104 senior stakeholders from government departments, trade unions and employer organisations in 31 European countries, and 24 follow‐up in‐depth interviews.

The finding is that although European nations have responded to the changing economic context and the resultant call by the European Commission for a new approach by adopting an array of innovative new policy measures to facilitate the declaration of undeclared work, stamping out such endeavour through repression measures remains the principal approach in most nations.

Until now, few studies have evaluated critically the different policy approaches adopted by European national governments to tackle undeclared work. This paper fills that gap.

This paper reveals that if undeclared jobs are to be transformed into declared jobs and economic inclusion promoted, national governments will need to accord more priority to innovative new policy measures to legitimise declared work than is currently the case.

This is the first critical evaluation of whether the European Commission call for innovative new policy measures when tackling undeclared work has been implemented.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which there is cross‐national cooperation when tackling undeclared work and how the fight against undeclared work in Europe might be more effectively coordinated.

A multi‐stage inductive approach is used involving a web survey of 104 senior government officials, trade unions and employer organisations in 31 European countries, 33 follow‐up in‐depth explanatory interviews, four two‐day focus groups in European regions involving 44 stakeholders, and a European‐wide focus group of 20 stakeholders.

Collaboration between European countries is currently partial and very limited when tackling undeclared work. To more effectively collaborate, the consensus amongst the participating stakeholders is that an inclusive network of experts covering the tax, social security and labour aspects of undeclared work needs to be developed which engages in information sharing, capacity building and operational cooperation not only on the issue of cross‐border undeclared work but also combating undeclared work at the national level.

Until now, the literature on undeclared work has not evaluated the extent and nature of cross‐national collaborations to tackle this phenomenon. This paper fills that gap.

The paper reports the consensus reached amongst pan‐European stakeholders on how to more effectively broker knowledge on a multilateral cross‐national basis to tackle undeclared work.

This is the first evaluation of cross‐national collaboration in relation to tackling undeclared work in Europe.

Until now, most scholars have used one of four competing theories to explain undeclared work. Political economy theories explain undeclared work as resulting from the exclusion of workers from formal work and welfare, neo-liberal theories explain such work as a voluntarily chosen rational economic decision and neo-institutionalist and post-structuralist theories explain those engaging as social actors who disagree with the formal rules or seek to help others out respectively. Recognising that each theory focuses upon different employment relationships, this paper evaluates the proposition that these different theories are more explanations of different types of undeclared work.

To evaluate this, data reported is collected in 2019 across 28 European countries (the 27 member states of the European Union and the United Kingdom) in special Eurobarometer survey 92.1 involving 27,565 interviews.

Of the 3.6% of citizens participating in undeclared work, 10% engage in undeclared waged employment, 42% in undeclared self-employment and 48% in undeclared paid favours. Reporting their rationales, 7% state purely political economy exclusion-driven reasons, 19% solely neo-liberal rational economic actor reasons, 20% purely social actor reasons and 54% mixed motives. A logistic regression analysis finds those engaging in undeclared waged employment significantly more likely to state purely exclusion-driven rationales, those engaging in undeclared self-employment significantly more likely to state neo-liberal rational economic actor and neo-institutionalist social actor rationales and those engaging in undeclared paid favours post-structuralist social actor motives.

This finding suggests that the policy initiatives required to tackle undeclared work will vary according to the type of undeclared work addressed. These are outlined.

Evidence is provided that a different weighting needs to be given to different theories when explaining each type of undeclared work.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the nature of undeclared work in South East Europe and the rest of the European Union and in doing so, to evaluate critically the validity of depicting the character of undeclared work as being the same everywhere.

A 2007 survey of undeclared work is reported, conducted in 27 European Union (EU) member states involving 26,659 face‐to‐face interviews. This paper focuses on the results of the 2,432 interviews conducted in five South East European countries, namely Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovenia.

In South Eastern Europe, more undeclared work is found to be waged employment and conducted by marginalised population groups out of necessity compared with other EU regions. Nevertheless, and similar to other EU regions, most undeclared work is conducted on an own‐account basis, rather than as waged employment, for close social relations, rather than anonymous employers, and out of choice rather than necessity, although different mixtures prevail in different places and populations both within South Eastern Europe and across the EU as a whole.

This recognition of the multifarious work relations and motives involved in undeclared work, and different mixtures in varying populations, displays the need to move beyond treating undeclared work as everywhere the same and towards nuanced spatially sensitive representations.

Given the proportion of undeclared work conducted on an own‐account basis and for closer social relations, this paper reveals that if South East European governments continue to seek its eradication, they will deter with one hand precisely the entrepreneurship and mutual aid that with another they are seeking to nurture.

This is the first evaluation of undeclared work in South East Europe and the EU.

This paper aims to explore the prevalence of undeclared activities conducted on digital labour platforms, and then to discuss what policies are likely to be more effective in order to prevent the growth of the informal activities on these platforms.

To depict the profile of the digital worker conducting undeclared activities, the sectors where undeclared activities are more prevalent and the effectiveness of deterrent policies, data are reported from 2019 Special Eurobarometer survey covering the European Union member states and the UK.

The finding is that 13% of undeclared activities are conducted on digital labour platforms. This practice is more common amongst men, those married or remarried, those living in small/middle towns, in sectors such as repairs/renovations, selling goods/services, assistance for dependant persons, gardening and help moving house. The higher the perceived sanction, the lower the likelihood of undertaking undeclared activities on digital labour platforms. Intriguing, a higher risk of detection is associated with a higher likelihood to use digital labour platform for undeclared activities.

The attitudes toward risk can be interpreted closer to the gaming context, and not to the working environment, looking at platform workers as being involved in a state versus individual game. Policy makers should consider improving the correspondence of laws and regulations between countries and offering operational assistance for suppliers and consumers.

This is the first paper to explore the prevalence of undeclared activities conducted on digital labour platforms and to outline the policy measures required to reduce this practice.

The temporary enforced closure of businesses in response to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in governments in Europe and beyond offering short-term financial support to the businesses and workers affected. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a group of workers unable to benefit from the short-term job retention schemes and support to the self-employed made available by governments, namely, those whose paid work is comprised wholly of undeclared work, and how this could be addressed.

To identify those whose paid work is entirely undeclared, a Eurobarometer survey of undeclared work in Europe is reported conducted in September 2019, just prior to the pandemic, and involving 27,565 face-to-face interviews in 28 European countries.

The finding is that the paid work of one in every 132 European citizens is comprised wholly of undeclared work, and these workers are concentrated in non-essential businesses and activities severely affected by the lockdown. These workers whose paid work is comprised wholly of undeclared work are significantly more likely to be widowed or divorced/separated, living in households with three or more adults, without children and most of the time have financial difficulties in making ends meet.

Given that businesses and workers in the undeclared economy are largely unable to work under lockdown, it is argued that providing access to short-term financial support, through a regularisation initiative based on voluntary disclosure, would not only provide the income support these workers need but also bring them out of the shadows and put them on the radar of the state authorities, thus transforming undeclared work into declared work.

This paper shows how in the current or repeat lockdowns, the short-term financial support made available by governments can be used to transform undeclared work into declared work.

Viewing undeclared work as low‐paid, exploitative, organised employment conducted under sweatshop conditions, public policy has widely treated this illegitimate sphere as a hindrance to development and actively pursued its deterrence using stringent regulations and punitive measures to change the cost‐benefit ratio for those considering participation in such endeavour. In this paper, however, the intention is to evaluate critically this portrait of the nature of undeclared work and resultant public policy approach.

To evaluate this representation of undeclared work and consequent public policy approach, empirical evidence is reported from 861 face‐to‐face interviews in English localities.

The finding is that the majority of undeclared work is undertaken on a self‐employed basis by people who have identified an opportunity to provide a good or service and are taking a calculated risk in order to fulfil others needs.

Future research will need to further investigate this relationship between self‐employment and the undeclared sector.

Identifying that the undeclared sphere is predominantly composed of self‐employed endeavour, a call is made for greater emphasis in public policy on developing initiatives to legitimise this illegitimate self‐employment, rather than simply deterring such work.

By re‐reading the nature of undeclared work as primarily composed of self‐employed activity, it highlights the need for public policy to stop treating undeclared work purely as something to be deterred and for more emphasis to be put on developing enabling initiatives to help such workers formalise their business ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the “marginalisation” thesis, which holds that marginalised populations disproportionately participate in undeclared work. Until now, the evidence that participation in undeclared work is higher in marginalised areas (e.g. peripheral rural localities) and marginalised socio-economic groups (e.g. the unemployed, immigrant populations and women) has come from mostly small-scale surveys of particular localities and population groups. There have been no extensive quantitative surveys. Here, the intention is to fill this gap.

To do this, we report a 2007 survey of participation in undeclared work involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews conducted in 27 European Union (EU) member states.

The finding is that the marginalisation thesis is valid when discussing younger people and those living in peripheral rural areas; they are more likely to participate in undeclared work. However, there is no significant association between immigrant populations and participation in undeclared work. Moreover, a reinforcement thesis, which holds that the undeclared economy reinforces the spatial and socio-economic disparities produced by the declared economy, applies when considering those with fewer years in education, women, the unemployed and less affluent European regions; they have lower participation rates than higher educated people, men, the employed and affluent European regions.

The outcome is a call for a more nuanced understanding of the marginalisation thesis as valid for some marginalised populations but not others. Whether similar findings prevail at other spatial scales and in other global regions now needs investigating.

This survey displays that although it is appropriate to target some marginalised populations when tackling undeclared work, this is not valid for others (e.g. immigrant populations, the unemployed, those living in less affluent EU regions).

The first extensive evaluation of whether marginalised populations are more likely to participate in undeclared work.

This paper seeks to analyse the various approaches being used by the public sector across the European Union to tackle undeclared work and to evaluate the direction of change.

To do this, the National Action Plans for Employment 2001 and 2003 (NAPs) and the National Reform Programmes 2005‐2008 (NRPs) are analysed, along with the data collected in international reviews conducted by the European Employment Observatory in Autumn 2004 and the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) in 2005 on undeclared work.

In parallel with public sector management in other realms, where it is accepted that positive reinforcement of “good” behaviour is more effective at eliciting change than negative reinforcement of “bad” behaviour, the finding is that the public sector in EU member states is moving away from solely a repressive approach that seeks to detect and penalise offenders and towards an approach that also seeks to stimulate good behaviour by rewarding compliance. Until now, however, these positive reinforcement measures appear to remain firmly entrenched in a bureaucratic management approach that uses externally imposed direct control systems to generate reactive behaviours, rather than an internalised post‐bureaucratic approach that seeks to generate constructive pro‐activity and commitment to tax morality on the part of populations.

This is one of the first attempts to evaluate how public sector management is tackling undeclared work in European member states.