Neoliberal Peru and the Informal Economy

• In Event: Neoliberalism, Employment, and the Informal Economy

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the interlinkages among participants in the informal sector, retired workers from formal sector employment and the peasant community from which they derive in the context of neoliberal Peru. Peru’s economy has long hinged on resource extraction, and the location, technology and policies relating to mining activity inform the livelihood choices of its citizens. While an earlier wave of mining investment created a proletarian workforce in the area around the legally recognized peasant community of Allpachico, after 1970 there was no further hiring and younger Allpachiquenos turned to the informal sector. Families and the community itself reflected an integrated mixture of employment and informal sector income along with subsistence production. Now, those few men who kept their jobs in the mining sector over the last decades of the 20th century have retired and their pensions constitute an increasingly rare stable source of funds for their families.

Author

• Susan M Vincent, St. Francis Xavier University