Rethinking notions of informal work: Some observations from a Pakistani community in the UK

Paid informal work has commonly been conceptualised as a form of paid employment heavily imbued with profit motivations. However, this article argues that such a market-oriented reading of paid informal exchange is often inappropriate. Using evidence from fifty interviews conducted with households in a large Pakistani community in the UK lends support to post-structuralist explanations of informal work. The results problematize the widespread use of neoliberal and structuralist theorizations to explain the prevalence of the informal economy in developed economies. Instead, the results highlight certain implicit social constructs existing within the labour process of informal businesses. Motivations drawn from these social artefacts, or what can be termed as 'immigrant agency', are found to be a major reason for Pakistani employers and employees engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges in the informal economy.