The changing role of employment and alternative income sources among the urban poor: a systematic literature review

We perform a systematic review of the literature on the association between income, employment, and urban poverty from a multidisciplinary perspective. Our results, derived from the analysis of 243 articles, confirm the significant role of employment in the urban poor’s lives, highlighting several factors that constrain their ability to improve their labour market outcomes: lack of access to public transport, geographical segregation, labour informality, among others. Furthermore, the paper finds different strategies used by the poor to promote their inclusion in their city’s economy. We found a major bias towards research focused on advanced economies, stressing the need for development studies dealing with the specific challenges of developing economies.

本研究从多学科视角出发，对收入、就业与城市贫困之间关联的相关文献展开系统性综述。通过对243篇学术文献的分析所得出的研究结果，证实了就业在城市贫困群体生活中的核心作用，同时点明了诸多制约其改善劳动力市场表现的影响因素：公共交通可达性匮乏、地域隔离、劳动非正规化等。此外，本研究还梳理发现贫困群体为推动自身融入所在城市经济体系而采取的各类策略。同时，研究揭示出现有文献存在显著的研究偏向，大多聚焦于发达经济体，这凸显了针对发展中经济体的专属挑战开展相关发展研究的必要性。