Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender, Opportunity, and Identity in New York's Informal Economy

非正规经济，即在正规监管结构之外生产合法商品和服务，包括范围广泛的活动和产品，包括儿童保育、街头贩卖和家庭轻工业工作。 大多数关于非正规经济的研究侧重于证明其规模和重要性，查明其扩张的原因，或了解其与正规经济的关系。 研究忽视了参与非正规劳动方式如何影响个人以及这些影响对男性和女性的不同影响。 本项目通过直接比较纽约市非正规经济中自营职业的男女的机会、经历和身份，纠正了这些疏忽。 该项目使用滚雪球抽样方法，通过海报广告、报纸分类广告和其他样本参与者的推荐来招募受访者，并通过深入访谈收集有关非正式工作历史、典型工作日以及工作、性别和个人身份的数据。 除了描述男性和女性如何进行日常的非正式工作，开始非正式工作，寻找客户和赚取收入，数据显示非正式工作如何影响个人身份，以及身份如何塑造非正式工作过程。

The informal economy, or the production of licit goods and services outside formal regulatory structures, encompasses a wide range of activities and products, including childcare, street vending, and home-based light industrial work. Most research on the informal economy focuses on demonstrating its size and importance, identifying the causes of its expansion, or understanding its relationship to the formal economy. Research has neglected issues relating to how participation in informal modes of labor affects individuals, and how these effects differ for men and women. This project rectifies these oversights by directly comparing the opportunities, experiences, and identities of men and women who are self-employed in New York City's informal economy. Using snowball sampling methods to recruit respondents with pin-up advertisements, newspaper classifieds, and referrals from other sample participants, the project gathers data from in-depth interviews about informal work histories, typical work days, and work, gender, and personal identities. In addition to describing how men and women go about their informal work on a day-to-day basis, get started in informal work, find clients, and earn income, the data show how informal work affects individual identity and how identity shapes the informal work process.