The Global Workforce: A Statistical Picture
In 2002, the WIEGO network analyzed available national statistics on the informal economy (broadly defined) for an ILO publication called Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture. The available evidence shows that, in developing countries, informal employment comprises one half to three-quarters of non-agricultural employment in developing countries and, if informal employment in agriculture is measured, a higher percentage still of total employment. Self-employment comprises a greater share of informal employment than wage employment. And informal employment comprises a greater share of women’s employment than of men’s employment. What follows is a summary of the main statistical findings of the 2002 ILO publication, including data on non-standard work in developed countries:
Size of the Informal Economy -
- Informal employment broadly defined comprises one-half to three-quarters of non-agricultural employment in developing countries: specifically,
47 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa;
51 per cent in Latin America;
71 per cent in Asia; and
72 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.
If South Africa is excluded, the share of informal employment in non-agricultural employment rises to 78 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa; and if comparable data were available for other countries in South Asia in addition to India, the regional average for Asia would likely be much higher.
- Some countries include informal employment in agriculture in their estimates. This significantly increases the proportion of informal employment: from 83 per cent of non-agricultural employment to 93 per cent of total employment in India; from 55 to 62 per cent in Mexico; and from 28 to 34 per cent in South Africa.
- Three categories of non-standard or atypical work – self-employment, part-time work, and temporary work – comprise 30 per cent of overall employment in 15 European countries and 25 per cent of total employment in the United States. Although not all self-employed, part-time workers, and temporary workers are informally employed, the majority receive few (if any) employment-based benefits or protection. In the United States, for instance, less than 20 per cent of regular part-time workers have employer-sponsored health insurance or pensions.
- In the ILO 2002 book, countries such as Syria in Western Asia were included under Asia. In this summary, Western Asia has been included under the Middle East and North Africa.
Composition of the Informal Economy –
As noted earlier, the informal economy is comprised of both self-employment in informal enterprises (i.e., small and/or unregistered) and wage employment in informal jobs (i.e., without secure contracts, worker benefits or social protection).
- In developing regions, self-employment comprises a greater share of informal employment outside
of agriculture than wage employment. More specifically,
self-employment represents
70 per cent of informal employment in sub-Saharan Africa;
63 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa; and
60 per cent in Latin America and 57 per cent in Asia.
Excluding South Africa, the share of self-employment in informal non-agricultural employment increases to 81 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. The share of self-employment in total informal employment would likely be higher if informality in agricultural was included.
- Self-employment represents nearly
one-third of total non-agricultural employment worldwide. It is less important in developed countries (12 percent of total non-agricultural employment) than in developing countries where it comprises as much as 53 per cent of non-agricultural employment in sub-Saharan Africa, 44 per cent in Latin America, 34 per cent in Asia, and 28 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa.
- Informal wage employment is also
significant in the developing world: comprising 30 to 40 per cent
of informal employment (outside of agriculture). Informal wage employment is comprised of employees of informal enterprises as well as various types of informal wage workers who work for formal enterprises, households, or no fixed employer. These include casual day labourers, domestic workers, industrial outworkers (notably homeworkers), undeclared workers, and part-time or temporary workers without secure contracts, worker benefits, or social protection.
- Non-standard wage employment,
much of which is informal, is significant in the developed world. In 1998, part-time work represented 14 per cent of total employment for the OECD countries as a whole and more than 20 per cent of total employment in eight of these countries. In the countries of the European Union, temporary work comprises 11 per cent of total employment. Comparable data on other categories of non-standard wage work that are even more likely to be informal in nature – namely, contract work, industrial outwork, and casual day labour - are not available.
- Home-based workers and street vendors are two of the largest sub-groups of the informal workforce: with home-based workers the more numerous but street vendors the more visible of the two. Together they represent 10-25 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce in developing countries and over 5 per cent of the total workforce in developed countries.
Women and Men in the Informal Economy –
- Informal employment is generally
a larger source of employment for women than for men in the developing
world. Other than in the Middle East and North Africa where 42 per cent of women workers are in informal employment, 60 per cent or more of women workers in the developing world are in informal employment (outside agriculture). Here are the comparative figures for informal employment as share of non-agricultural employment by sex and region: in sub-Saharan Africa, 84 per cent of women workers compared to 63 per cent of men workers; in Latin America 58 per cent of women workers in comparison to 48 per cent of men workers; and in Asia 73 per cent of women workers in comparison to 70 per cent of men workers.
- • Although women’s labour force participation rates are lower than men’s, the limited data available point to the importance of women in home-based work and street vending in developing countries:
30-90 per cent of street vendors (except in societies that restrict women’s mobility);
35-80 per cent of all home-based workers (including both self-employed and homeworkers); and
80 per cent or more of homeworkers (industrial outworkers who work at home). - Although women’s labour force participation rates are lower than men’s, women represent the vast majority of part-time workers in many developed countries. In 1998, women were 60 per cent or more of part-time workers in all OECD countries reporting data. Women’s share of part-time work for specific countries was as high as 98 per cent in Sweden, 80 per cent in the United Kingdom, and 68 per cent in both Japan and the United States.