Are there any basis as to what work is included in the informal sector of the economy?

Answer:
First of all, the term "informal" isn't really appropriate, and I believe any work in that field should include a discussion on this matter ("informal" suggests "without form" and "marginal", but what I would call "popular economy" is very structured, and is sometimes the main economic activity).

As for activities that are "informal", it really depends, mostly on the "barriers", or maybe the lack of economic incentive that prevents an activity from going formal.

Street hawkers are usually informal in developping countries, but are totally formal in other countries (Japan, for example).

On the other hand, some activities are formal in some developping countries and informal in rich ones (a good example would be the preparation of some dishes: if it requires an investment, like an oven, poor households in developping countries can't do it at home and this activity could go formal).

So the basis lies in the structure of the whole economy and society, not in the characteristic of one kind of work (unless you deal with criminal activity, but that's a different matter).

Hope it helped

Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/informal_ec...
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region...
http://www.openair.org/cross/infdef2.htm...
http://www.gdrc.org/informal/index.html...
http://www.answers.com/topic/informal-ec...
http://rru.worldbank.org/discussions/top...

Any economic activity has to have a market. If there is an informal economy, then the market is being suppressed by government, and the activity is being carried out `underground`.

So the answer to your question is `any work for which there are customers, but the govenment has to be excluded from knowing about it`.

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Are there any basis as to what work is included in the informal sector of the economy?

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