This paper evaluates self-help and mutual aid as tools for tackling social exclusion and promoting social cohesion in deprived urban neighbourhoods. Highlighting the rationales for using self-help and mutual aid to combat social exclusion and cohesion and then drawing upon case-study evidence...

In the light of high unemployment in deprived neighbourhoods, this paper considers whether community exchange is being used as a coping strategy. Examining its current magnitude and character as well as the barriers to participation in a particular deprived neighbourhood, this paper finds that...

The aim of this paper is draw out some policy lessons from a study of self-help activity amongst 200 households in deprived urban neighbourhoods of Southampton. Commencing with a critique of the popular prejudice that promoting self-help should be opposed in case it leads to a demise of formal...

Drawing upon case study evidence from Southampton, the aim of this paper is to show that paid informal work is not merely an economically-motivated peripheral form of employment that should be eradicated due to its fraudulent and exploitative nature. Instead, paid informal work is revealed to be...

PurposeFor 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...

Despite the emergent recognition that many in the informal economy work on a self-employed basis, few have evaluated the extent and character of such endeavour. To start to fill this gap, a 2007 Eurobarometer survey composed of 26,659 face-to-face interviews in 27 European countries is reported....

A widespread assumption has been that undeclared work is rife in the European construction industry. Despite this, there have been no European-wide surveys of the prevalence and character of undeclared work in this sector of the economy. To fill this gap, the findings are reported of a 2007...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether undeclared work is the same when conducted by men and women. Conventionally, the view is that such work is always profit-motivated market-like work and that women's undeclared work mirrors their subjugated position in the formal labour market in terms...

Viewing undeclared work as market-like activity conducted for monetary gain, and participation as a rational economic decision, the widespread public policy response has been to seek to deter engagement in such work by ensuring that the expected cost of being caught and punished is greater than...

This paper argues that by shackling the future of work to a vision of full-employment, alternative futures are closed-off. At present, employment creation is seen as the sole route out of poverty. Here, however, we reveal that a complementary additional pathway is to help people to help...