What if we harnessed the power of the “informal economy” to drive social, educational, and economic reform?
According to the World Economic Forum (2024), over 60% of global employment occurs within the informal economy. In Mexico, this figure stands at a concerning 55.1% as of 2023, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). This reality, far from being just a statistic, unveils an economic structure on the brink of collapse that nonetheless sustains millions of Mexican families.
The Informal Economy: A Paradox and an Opportunity
The informal economy represents a double paradox: it supports internal consumption, mobility, and employment while simultaneously condemning millions to precarity, denying them access to social security, funding, or decent working conditions. Moreover, this informality is not equitably distributed; it disproportionately affects women, young people, indigenous peoples, and those with low literacy levels. Its persistence is not an individual failure but a structural debt.
The solution cannot solely be formalization; it must be dignification. We need a creative, gradual, and robust reform that integrates the informal sector as a legitimate actor in national development. The Mexican Humanism calls us to view this phenomenon with hopeful determination, recognizing its value and co-creating strategies for well-being, prosperity, and sustainability.
Dimensions of Analysis and Action
From a holistic humanist perspective, I propose addressing the informal economy through four interconnected dimensions:
Political and Social Recognition
The first step is to acknowledge the value of the informal sector. As Amartya Sen puts it, development is freedom. Domestic workers, street vendors, day laborers, and micro-entrepreneurs are not remnants of the past but active agents of development. The Mexican state must ensure their right to exist, produce, and thrive.
Inclusive Innovation
Following Colin Mayer, a truly prosperous economy is one that creates solutions for people and the planet. We need digital platforms that not only formalize but also empower: cooperative networks, gamified financial education, ethical microcredits, local value chains.
Adapted Infrastructure and Services
The infrastructure of well-being cannot be designed solely for those with formal income. As Kate Raworth suggests, we need to redesign the system so everyone lives within a “donut”: having both a social floor and an ecological ceiling. This includes community health models, incremental housing, and modular education.
Culture of Corporate Social Responsibility
Mexican businesses, especially family-owned and SMEs, must actively participate in this transformation. We cannot keep waiting for governmental reforms when change can start locally. As Raj Sisodia argues in “The Power of Conscious Leadership,” conscious leadership can and must align with the values of Mexican Humanism.
Concrete Proposals for Practical Action
Based on my experience as an entrepreneur, human development developer, and educator, I propose five lines of action for co-creating a just transition:
- Participatory community mapping: Utilize geolocation technologies and community networks to identify, visualize, and listen to informal actors in neighborhoods, colonies, and villages. Nothing for them without them.
- Humanist Innovation Labs: Mixed spaces (academia, business, informal sector) to prototype contextualized solutions. From digital bartering systems to community-based microinsurance.
- Network of humanist business mentors: Formal entrepreneurs guiding informal ones through management, finance, and leadership processes. Not from a vertical stance but from solidarity across generations.
- Inclusion of dignity and well-being indicators in public policies: Beyond GDP and formal employment, we urgently need to measure access to services, emotional stability, care networks, and civic participation.
- Education for dignified productivity: Alternative curricula from basic to higher education that teach to value, understand, and dignify all forms of work.
As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “We are condemned to be free.” This freedom implies responsibility. We cannot just get indignant about inequality; we must act. The Mexican business community, especially family-owned and SMEs, has a historical opportunity to lead a new humanist revolution from the bottom.
Remember, informality is not the problem; the exclusionary view of development is. The discrimination associated with the “informal” label.
Hope: Mexican Humanism as a Political Decision
“The truly generous person is the one who gives without remembering and receives without forgetting,” as Albert Camus put it. Today, Mexico needs structural generosity, practical empathy, and creative reforms.
Mexican Humanism is not a philosophical romanticism; it’s a nation-building strategy, a practical approach to reconstruct the country from its margins. The informal economy is one of those margins that today shows us the lost center.
It’s time to redefine, reorganize, and reconnect. Dignified productivity is a human right. It’s time to honor it.
Economic development must be humanist, or it won’t be worthy.
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Hopeful greeting in letters.
*The author is a Human Development Doctoral candidate at the Universidad Motolinía del Pedregal, Mexico; Master’s in Human Development at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico; Executive Master in Strategic Positive Leadership at the Instituto de Empresa, Spain. Licensed in Graphic Communication and Columnist at El Economista.
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