Improving fairness in the economy through a better understanding of undeclared and underdeclared work

Expected Outcome:

Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Policymakers and social partners have insights into the scope and/or characteristics of un(der)declared work or actors involved in un(der)declared work.
• Policymakers receive actionable advice on policy measures effective in reducing the prevalence of un(der)declared work and/or its adverse social consequences.

Scope:

Un(der)declared work, as well as the evasion of compulsory payments linked to workers’ remuneration (e.g. bogus self-employment to avoid payment to social security schemes) hinder fair social market economy and reduce the sustainability of social protection system.

The proliferation of disruptive technologies, the increased presence of third-country nationals in the Member States, as well as rapidly rising living costs are leading to higher volatility on the labour market, including an accelerated rate of change in the characteristics of labour demand and supply, and new forms of employment such as e.g. project work in the gig-economy. These circumstances are conducive to growing inequality on the labour market and a spread of unfair practices, including un(der)declared work and the evasion of compulsory payments.

The SSH research activities are expected to have a strong multidisciplinary aspect. Proposals should contribute to advancing research on the scope, volume and/or characteristics of un(der)declared work in the economy and/or the evasion of compulsory payments linked to workers’ remuneration. Subsequent research activities should contribute to our understanding of the causes and main structural drivers behind actors’ willingness to engage in un(der)declared work and/or the related evasion of compulsory payments. Moreover, the research project should contribute to the evidence-based assessment of policies seeking to tackle un(der)declared work and/or the evasion of compulsory payments.

The geographical focus of the research activities should comprise a group of economies with a heterogeneous prevalence of un(der)declared work. The proposals are encouraged to consider the impact of disruptive technologies (e. g. digital platforms, cloud computing, generative artificial intelligence) on the proliferation and/or changing features of un(der)declared work.

The proposal may:

• focus on methods seeking to address social desirability bias in public surveys
• focus on experiments and/or counterfactual analysis to advance the measurement of the impact of policy interventions
• focus on mechanisms of efficient cooperation among national authorities responsible for tackling un(der)declared work
• explore opportunities for the use of machine learning in tackling un(der)declared work
• explore un(der)declared work in the platform economy and/or in new professions created in response to rapid technological change
• focus on un(der)declared work among mobile workers
• insights from behavioural research into drivers behind un(der)declared work and/or the evasion of compulsory payments.
• explore the potential for social-demographic or other typologies of undeclared work
• aim at a establishing a more systematic link between un(der)declared work and taxation system or social security system.
• examine gender and social stratification variations in the nature of un(der)declared work (e.g., occupational segregation, motives, working time patterns).

Clustering and cooperation with other relevant projects are strongly encouraged.

Where applicable, proposals should leverage the data and services available through European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud, as well as data from relevant Data Spaces. Particular efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of this topic is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable).