Chapter 1 replicates and extends Khamis (2009) to provide a detailed analysis of
informality in the Mexican labor market. The goal is to develop a deeper understanding
of factors that drive a Mexican worker to join the informal sector. I utilize the Mexican
Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to test the relationship between informality and gender,
relationship status, age, place of residence, educational attainment, job type, income,
firm size, and violence. I find that younger, unmarried women and men with lower
levels of education living in small rural towns and working in the service sector have
the highest propensity to work informally. Additionally, formality is concentrated in
lower income groups and smaller firms and older, married men that are not in nonservice
sector jobs tend to work in formal positions regardless of firm size. Finally, I find
violent assault experience does not have a significant relationship with working the
informal sector.
Chapter 2 expands empirical literature regarding labor law violation and compliance by
identifying violation rates for the case of Uruguay. The analysis is then extended using
a labor market adaptation of Alkire-Foster multidimensional poverty measurement. I
find that labor law violation has progressively decreased since 2002, laborers who have
low education, live in rural areas, are black, and work in small firms are more likely to
face labor violations, and workers are more likely to experience violations in labor
dimensions outside of minimum wage. These findings open a rich research agenda
concerning labor law violation rates, enforcement resources, and informality.