Programme Areas: Statistics*

Problem Statement and Programme Objectives:

The founders of WIEGO recognized the power of statistics in making visible the importance of the informal economy and the situation of those working in it. In the mid-1990’s when WIEGO began, the informal sector was a relatively new concept in labour statistics. However, this concept did not cover certain types of informal wage employment outside informal enterprises. And as a new area of statistics, few of countries had collected data on the informal sector. Only limited ad hoc estimates were available on the size of the informal economy more broadly defined and the situation of informal workers. In order to address these problems, the WIEGO Statistics Programme has worked along two broad lines toward:

• developing statistics on the informal economy as an essential component of mainstream or official statistics at national, regional and international levels; this involves encouraging countries to include the topic in data collection activities as well as donor funding for it, and contributing to the development of improved classifications, concepts and methods for data collection and for estimation of the contribution to the national economy ; and
  
  
• ensuring that statistics and analysis are available to policy makers, researchers and advocates in easily accessible formats by preparing compilations of data and reports on the size and contribution of the informal economy and the characteristics and situation of workers in it.
  

Value Added

A major strength of the WIEGO Statistics Programme is the strong collaboration it has developed between users of statistics – the member-based organizations of informal workers, NGOs, research institutions and development agencies - and the producers of official statistics. The WIEGO Statistics Programme has built on the efforts of and worked collaboratively with national statistics offices –especially those which place high priority on statistics on informal employment as well as international organizations: specifically the ILO, which under the international statistical system is responsible for labour force statistics, the United Nations Statistics Division, which is responsible for the international system of national accounts (SNA) and the Expert Group on Informal Sector Statistics, called the Delhi Group. The latter group was formed in 1997 by countries interested in improving statistics on the informal sector and reports regularly to the United Nations Statistical Commission. It has also worked with the Task Force on Education and Gender Equality of the United Nations Millennium Project and the Sub-Group on Gender Indicators of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators.

The collaborative ties and expertise of the Statistics Programme were strengthened further with the addition of James Heintz, a labour economist based at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as coordinator of research in 2005.

Long-Term Goals

Improved availability of data on informal employment and related concepts:

• data for a critical mass of countries on the informal economy – size, composition, contribution and earnings and poverty risks of informal workers; and
  
• regular tabulations of total employment that disaggregates the labour force on the dimensions of agriculture/non-agriculture, employment status and formal and informal at national and international levels.

Improved methods and classifications relating to informal employment, specifically:

• development of a unified framework that links non-standard work in OECD countries and informal employment in developing countries; and
  
• revision of the classification of status of employment to make it more sensitive to the statuses of workers in informal employment.

A network of analysts worldwide and a body of statistical resources being used for research on key issues related to informal employment including:

• the situation of workers and trends in different types of informal employment;
  
• labour force segmentation, its patterns and determinants; and
  
• economic policy research and development alternatives.
  

Past Activities and Accomplishments

Three major publications prepared for international organizations ---each containing new and improved statistical information and methods on the informal economy and the situation of informal workers

• Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty by Martha Chen, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund, James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala and Christine Bonner. This report, which was prepared for UNIFEM, UNDP and the ILO, presents new analytic frameworks and data on the links between informal employment, poverty and gender inequality.
  
  
• Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction by Marty Chen, Joann Vanek and Marilyn Carr (2004). The book, which was prepared for the Commonwealth Secretariat, includes a compilation and analysis of the available data on gender segmentation in the informal economy , earnings and the risk of poverty.
  
  
• Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture, prepared for the 90th session of the International Labour Conference in 2002. The report, which was prepared for the ILO, provides a statistical picture –using the available data - of the informal economy worldwide. It is mainly based on a compilation of official statistics by Jacques Charmes and his development of the residual method to prepare estimates of informal employment where direct measures are not available. Addition data included case studies of India, Mexico and South Africa prepared by national experts.
  

Other important collaborative activities:

• Contributed to the efforts of the Millennium Project Task Force on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality and the Sub-Group on Gender Indicators of the United Nations Interagency Expert Group on MDG Indicators (IAEG) which resulted in the recommendation of the development of a background indicator – gender differences in the structure of employment – for monitoring progress toward achieving equality in employment (MDG 3) at the national level. This indicator includes data on status in employment, employment in agriculture and non-agricultural sectors, and formal and informal employment. To see the report of the September 2005 IAEG Subgroup Meeting, click here.
  
  
• Active participation at meetings of the Expert Group on Informal Sector Statistics (the Delhi Group) including the presentation of papers –from the second meeting held in Ankara in 1998 to the eighth held in Fiji in 2005 (see side bar).
  
  
• Workshop on Informal Sector Statistics in Latin America—October 16-18, 2001 in Santiago, Chile in collaboration with ILO/Latin America. Seven Latin American countries participated to assess progress and gaps in the measurement of the informal sector in the region. (Please click here to see background papers and meeting reports from this event);
  
  
• Study on place of work – in collaboration with United Nations Statistics Division and ILO Statistics Bureau. Methodological research and testing on the inclusion of the variable “place of work “ in household surveys – particularly labour force surveys – with the objective of improving the collection of data on home-based workers and street vendors. A meeting on this work of this project was held in Geneva in 2000 and ILO published the research in the report, On Measuring Place of Work in 2002.
  
  
• Five meetings of the WIEGO advisory group on statistics to plan and review the Programme’s activities:
  
  • in New York at UNIFEM in October 1997, shortly after the launching of WIEGO to commission papers and plan for participation at the second meeting of the Delhi Group in Ankara, Turkey in April 1998. The paper topics were: a data compilation and methods on women working in the informal sector and on street vendors in Africa; concepts and classification to improve statistics on home-based workers and the informal sector and an analysis of data on homeworkers in Mexico;
    
    
  • informal advisory meetings on statistics in connection with WIEGO General Meetings, specifically in Ottawa in April 1999, at Harvard in 2000 and in Ahmedabad in 2002;
    
    
  • in New York in May 2001 following on WIEGO participation at a seminar on data on women and work convened at the Rockefeller Foundation to discuss a framework and strategy for the development of global, regional and national estimates of employment in the informal sector;
    
    
  • in Geneva , May 2002 in connection with the International Labour Conference to plan future work on statistics on the informal economy (Please click here to see background papers and meeting reports from this event);
    
    
  • Subsequent meetings have taken place via teleconference calls.

Current Activities

• Development of the research component of the Statistics Programme by preparing a proposal, “Non-standard Work, Informal Work and Informalization: toward a Unified Framework for Statistics, Research and Policy”. It proposes three commissioned background papers and a technical working group to generate concrete recommendations for a more extensive programme of research;
  
  
• Participation in the team preparing the ILO, Delhi Group publication, Manual on Surveys of Informal Employment and Informal Sector;
  
  
• Preparation of a note for the forthcoming meeting of the Delhi Group on “The Links between Gender, Employment and Poverty: A Note on Methods, Findings and Future Work” ; and
  
  
• Analysis of national data on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3 for ILO.

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