Evaluating the nature of undeclared work in South Eastern Europe

What is it about?

The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the nature of undeclared work in South-East Europe and the rest of the European Union and in doing so, to evaluate critically the validity of depicting the character of undeclared work as everywhere the same.

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Why is it important?

A 2007 survey of undeclared work is reported conducted in 27 European Union (EU) member states involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews. This paper focuses upon the results of the 4,544 interviews conducted in five South-East European countries, namely Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovenia. In South-Eastern Europe, more undeclared work is found to be waged employment and conducted by marginalised population groups out of necessity compared with other EU regions. Nevertheless, and similar to other EU regions, most undeclared work is conducted on an own-account basis, rather than as waged employment, for close social relations, rather than anonymous employers, and out of choice rather than necessity, although different mixtures prevail in different places and populations both within South-Eastern Europe and across the EU as a whole.

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