This paper investigates the internal heterogeneity within China's informal economy by analyzing the working conditions of migrant informal workers. It's the first study to test the WIEGO model's relationship between informality, income, poverty, and gender using a large dataset (107,020 samples from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey). The analysis reveals significant heterogeneity in income, work intensity, contracts, social security, and union/community support across five employment-status tiers. The findings show a pattern that partially aligns with the WIEGO model, highlighting the complexity of informal employment and the need for context-specific research on the inequality-informality nexus.

Gengzhi Huang, Bowei Cai, Shuyi Liu, Desheng Xue