Informal Economy in Europe

The Informal Economy in Belgium: Case Study of Seasonal Work in the Fruit-growing

Dominique Boels, from the Ghent University, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Crime and Society,” under the title “The Informal Economy in Belgium: Case Study of Seasonal Work in the Fruit-growing”. Here is the abstract: Notwithstanding the relevance and importance of the informal economy, a lack of qualitative research revealing an in-depth view on the Belgian informal economy is discerned. We try to fill in this lacuna by conducting an in-depth analysis of 3 Belgian employment sectors (seasonal work, street trade and sex work) by means of 3 case studies, in which the presence of informal activities, their relations with formal activities and with the policy are investigated. The presentation focuses on the results of our first case study. Document analyses, file analyses and interviews were opted for. We conducted 58 interviews with fruit farmers, experts (regulators, enforcers and supporters) and seasonal workers of different ethnicities and nationalities. In addition of an intertwinement between formal and informal activities, our results suggest both a decreasing and increasing influence of the policy on informality.

Resources

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Further Reading

• “The Informal Economy in Belgium: Case Study of Seasonal Work in the Fruit-growing”, by Dominique Boels (Proceedings)