Originally written in French. Translated by AI — the meaning has been preserved, not the prose.
Short definition
The set of market activities carried out outside the declaratory framework — street vending, home services, arrangements in public space — without that implying concealment, an absence of equipment or a marginal character.
Full definition
The usual statistical definition files these activities by what they lack: no registration, no accounts, no social protection. Framing them by the lack has installed an image that doesn't match observation — that of an underground economy, in cash, hidden.
In the articles on this blog, the term designates activities that can be fully visible, tolerated by the neighbourhood and the local authorities, equipped with payment terminals and instant transfer, and carried out in well-off districts as much as working-class ones. What characterizes them is the status of the activity, not its degree of visibility or its technical level.
Usage in the field
The term comes into play in sizing a market — who is addressable, and from what base you count — and in decisions about integrating payment methods. It also appears when a product claims to formalize or regulate an existing activity.
Synonyms and variants
"Undeclared work", "hustle economy", informalidade in Brazil. "Underground economy" and "parallel economy" circulate as equivalents and carry the connotation of concealment the term doesn't presuppose.
Not to be confused with
- underground economy — activities deliberately concealed, often illicit in their very object. The informal can be carried out in broad daylight, in a perfectly licit object.
- subsistence economy — production intended for the producer's own consumption. The informal sells on a market and takes payment.
- declared precarious work — registered status, weak protections. It is status that separates the two, not the level of income.
Examples
Vendors circulating on the sand with drinks, maté and ice cream, taking payment by card or instant transfer. Men organizing parking on a beach, placing cars and keeping the keys. A fruit seller driving a van into a gated residential district, with his payment terminal.
Ambiguities / debates
The term is used sometimes as a neutral statistical category, sometimes as the designation of a problem to be absorbed. Both usages coexist in the same sentences, and the second already presupposes what would need establishing: that formalization is progress for those who practise it.