Informal Employment and Immigrant Networks: A Review Paper

This paper reviews some recent literature relevant to the Immigrant Work Strategies and Networks Project. Although it touches on some of the literature about informal employment, it concentrates on literature about immigrant networks in an attempt to work through concepts and draw out relevant indicators to be adopted in the research. This brief review reveals a number of theoretical currents in networks research which include a pro-solidarity thesis; challenges to the solidarity thesis; the issue of networks and markets; the roles of immigrant agency and finally, a critical approach that incorporates the main aspects of these theoretical options.