Comparative study of informal labor markets in the urbanization process: the Philippines and Thailand

"Culturally, socially, and politically, the Philippines and Thailand are completely different, but in the economic sphere until the end of the 1970s, the two exhibited such similarity that they could have been called twins. During the 1980s, however, the difference in the economic progress of the two countries widened greatly.... Relying on field surveys, this study will try to further clarify the differences in the social structures of the two countries through an analysis of the effects that urbanization has had on the urban informal labor market. Essentially it seeks to comprehend the urban labor market by approaching from another angle Hara's argument that the labor market in the Philippines is extremely segmented while that in Thailand is one of free movement between sectors with educational attainment effectively acting as a signal of labor quality."