Study: Eight in ten low-income workers in Argentina are in insecure employment

Some 84.8 percent of workers in the lowest income quintile – that is, the bottom 20 percent of earners – are in insecure employment in Argentina, meaning roughly eight in ten are in precarious jobs, according to a new study by the University of Buenos Aires.

UBA’s study, based on official household survey data tracked by the INDEC national statistics bureau, found that among all workers, four in ten are employed in “informal jobs” – i.e. insecure employment, defined as work without formal registration, social security contributions or labour protections.

The study found that informality varies widely by sector, gender, age, education level, region, company size and income. UBA breaks down these factors point by point.

Among employees, the informality rate stood at 36.3 percent, compared with 63.4 percent for the self-employed and 28.7 percent for employers. Rates were slightly higher among women than men, at 44.4 percent and 42.5 percent respectively, and reached 67.4 percent among young people.

Workers without a secondary education were also disproportionately affected, with an informality rate of 67.5 percent. Regionally, San Juan Province recorded a rate of 60.9 percent. By sector, domestic work and construction were among the hardest hit, at 79.8 percent and 72.6 percent respectively.

The findings highlight a broader trend identified by the Futuros Mejores organisation: a large share of people of working age living in poverty are in employment. Just 7.9 percent of working-age people below the poverty line are unemployed, the organisation noted, while 59 percent work in sectors such as construction, commerce and industry, often without earning enough to improve their economic situation. A further 18 percent are engaged in unpaid care work.

In a separate report, Futuros Mejores challenged what it described as persistent misconceptions about poverty and unemployment. 

The first myth is lack of effort: “Poor people work a higher average number of weekly hours than non-poor people (41.8 hours and 40.2 respectively),” said Futuros Mejores. In both cases, “the majority are in paid employment (78 percent of those above the poverty line and 69 percent of those below it).” The key difference, the report said, lies in the level of job formality.

“Poverty in Argentina today is, to a large extent, a direct consequence of labour precariousness,” said Daniela Maciel, a political scientist and one of the study’s authors.

Informality on the rise

According to the latest data from INDEC, the share of workers in informal employment rose to 43 percent over the past year, up from 42 percent. “In the year-on-year comparison, an increase of approximately one percentage point can be observed,” said the UBA report.

The researchers also pointed to limitations in how poverty is measured in Argentina, noting that the country relies purely on income-based indicators. “While more and more countries are moving towards multi-dimensional poverty indicators, Argentina continues to measure poverty exclusively by income,” the researchers explained. 

The study said public policies – including programmes such as the Volver al Trabajo scheme, recently scrapped by President Javier Milei’s government – have largely been designed around monetary poverty, leaving aside factors such as access to healthcare, education, housing and basic services. “This methodology tends to obscure structural inequalities that require differentiated approaches,” the UBA report added.

Lisandro Rodríguez Cometta, a sociologist and one of the authors of the study, told the Perfil newspaper that “over the past 30 years Argentina has reformulated its programmes for the working-age population at least ten times, without resolving the structural problem.”

The study also examined the impact on people engaged in community work, who were among the most affected by the elimination of Volver al Trabajo, as more than 90 percent of beneficiaries carried out such tasks.

While universal policies targeting children have gained broader support, “social policies for people of working age are always the subject of social and media debate” and remain politically and publicly contested, the report said. 

It pointed to models in more developed economies that combine income support with employment, training and paid care work.

“The debate on social policy is misguided: before asking who should be required to do what, we need to understand who is living in poverty in Argentina and what they are doing,” said Lucía Cirmi Obón, another of the report’s authors. “The data are clear: the vast majority already work.”

The economist, who holds a Master’s degree in Development, added that the idea that poverty is driven by a lack of effort or willingness to work “does not stand up to scrutiny.”