Abstract

BERGESIO, Liliana  and  GOLOVANEVSKY, Laura. Informal in Argentina: An approach from multivariate data analysis  in the early years of economic recovery (2003‐2006). Trab. soc. [online]. 2013, n.21, pp.437-457. ISSN 1514-6871.

The concept of informality, long debated in social sciences, has not found a single definition. The many attempts to measure this phenomenon have collided with this basic ambiguity. However, its undeniable presence in the streets, jobs and fairs, among many other places and situations, plus the perception of its steady growth in the cities, make this sector one of those which calls for an urgent advance in its knowledge. Therefore, in this paper we try to approach informality in Argentina in a descriptive way using multivariate data analysis, for the first years of economic recovery (2003-2006). In particular, we use principal component analysis, based on data for the different provinces, to apply a conceptual-methodological strategy to map informality in Argentina based on the particular forms the phenomenon takes in this country. The approach adopted sought to overcome the limitations recovering the perspective of job precariousness, which extends the conceptual frontier of the term, and accounts for all types of informal insertion.

Keywords : Multivariate analysis; Argentina; Informality; Precarious work.