Françoise Carré
Director, Statistics Programme
Informal workers must be recognized as economic agents. Using the concept of informal employment across developing and developed countries provides the opportunity to generate an overarching understanding of jobs, qualitative differences across them, and their implications. It offers a systematic way to analyze labour markets, taking into consideration overall job quality rather than solely the wages/earnings dimension.
Expertise
Labour economics and industrial relations, comparative employment systems, low wage work and social policies, non-standard employment, labour market intermediaries and workforce development
Bio
In addition to her role as Statistics Director for WIEGO, Françoise serves on the ILO Working group for the development of statistical standards concerning digital platform work and employment (2024-2028). She conducts research on work transformation and non-standard work in the USA and internationally.
Françoise was Research Director at the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies until her retirement in 2025. She continues to serve on the UN Economic Commission for Europe Steering Group on Measuring Quality of Employment.
On behalf of WIEGO, Françoise sat on the ILO Working Group on the Revision of the International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE-93), which led to a major step forward for informal workers. She served on the ILO Working Group and Expert Group on Statistics on Informality whose work prepared informality statistical standards approved at the 21st International Conference of Labour Statisticians (2023).
Françoise serves on the editorial committee of Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations Review. From 2012 to 2025, she served on the international scientific council for a French multi-university and cross-disciplinary research cluster focused on work (GESTES).
Françoise received her PhD in urban and regional studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). She has undergraduate degrees in economics from Wellesley College (USA, Phi Beta Kappa) and Université Paris IX Dauphine (France).
Françoise co-authored Where Bad Jobs Are Better: Retail Jobs Across Countries and Companies, which won the prestigious 2017 William G. Bowen Award for the Outstanding Book on Labor and Public Policy, presented by Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section.
She co-edited with Martha Chen the Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future. 2020. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429200724
Recent relevant publications include:
Koolwal, Gayatri, Françoise Carré and Joann Vanek. March 2025. “A Data User’s Perspective on the New Statistical Standards on Informality: Statistical Demands and Challenges in WIEGO’s Work.” Statistical Journal of the International Association for Official Statistics. pp. 1-14. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/18747655241298574
Carré, Françoise. 2022. “‘Dependent Contractor’: Towards the Recognition of a New Labor Category”. In Social Contracts and Informal Workers in the Global South, Sophie Plagerson, Marty Chen and Laura Alfers, Eds. Edward Elgar. https://www.elgaronline.com/display/book/9781839108068/book-part-9781839108068-10.xml
Carré, Françoise. 2020. “Informal Employment in Developed Countries: Relevance and Statistical Measurement”, In Chen and Carré, Eds. The Informal Economy Revisited: Examining the Past, Envisioning the Future. London: Routledge, pp. 52-59.
Carré, Françoise, Pat Horn and Chris Bonner. 2018. Collective Bargaining by Informal Workers in the Global South: Where and How It Takes Place (WIEGO Working Paper No. 38).
Carré, Françoise. 2017. Applying the Concept of the Informal Economy to Labour Market Changes in Developed Countries: What Can Be Learned (WIEGO Working Paper No.36).
Carré, Françoise, Rodrigo Negrete and Joann Vanek. 2017. Considerations for Revision of the International Classification of Status in Employment – ICSE-93 (WIEGO Statistical Brief No. 17).
Bonner, Chris and Françoise Carré. 2013. Global Networking: Informal Workers Build Solidarity, Power and Representation through Networks and Alliances (WIEGO Working Paper [Organizing and Representation] No. 31).
Carré, Françoise and James Heintz. 2009 (updated 2013). Toward a Common Framework for Informal Employment across Developed and Developing Countries (WIEGO Working Paper [Statistics] No. 26).