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Informal Economy & WIEGO

Press Release: A First Taste of Solidarity

Pune, India - April 28

Waste picker from Eastern Europe stands proudly in his home with banner from recent conference.

Poverty & Growth Linkages

The relationship between informality, poverty, and growth are complex and not well understood. This section of the website explores what is known about these relationships.

Informal workers

Typology of Domestic Workers

Most domestic workers work for a known employer or set of employers: private clients or households.1 Some are formally employed with written contracts, labour protections, and social protection, but most are not. They may work full-time for one employer or part-time for one or more employers. Some perform only a single task or service for their employers, while others perform multiple tasks or services. In many cases, the employment relationship is informal – that is, unregulated and unprotected due to the preference of the employer, the domestic worker, or both.

Hierarchies of Earnings & Poverty Risk

The statistical evidence summarized in the “Links with Poverty” section suggests a hierarchy of earnings and poverty risk across the various segments of the labour force, as illustrated in Figures 1-3 below. While average earnings are higher in formal employment than in informal, there is also a hierarchy of earnings within the informal economy. Employers have the highest average earnings, followed by their employees and other “regular” informal employees, then own account workers, followed by casual wage workers and domestic workers, and finally industrial outworkers.

Informality, Poverty & Gender: Summary of WIEGO Findings

Poverty & Informality:

Home-Based Workers in Pakistan

Workshop on Understanding the Supply Chain of Home-Based Workers in Pakistan

Presented by WIEGO, HOMENET PAKISTAN and HOMENET SOUTH ASIA

 April 2012 in Lahore, Pakistan

Recent Initiatives to Promote Organizing

A portion of the information on this web page has been adapted from Bonner, Christine and Dave Spooner, 2011. “Organizing in the Informal Economy: A Challenge for Trade Unions,” in International Politics and Society, IPG 2/11.

Concepts, Definitions & Methods

The purpose of this section of the website is to provide interested users of statistics on informal employment with the information required to maximize the use of available data and to begin discussions with producers of these statistics to better meet their data needs. Dialogue and collaboration between statisticians and users of statistics is a key to producing timely data that informs policy.

Links with Economic Crises

It is widely recognized that economic crises lead to increased unemployment – through loss of jobs – in the formal economy. It is also widely recognized that economic crises lead to increased employment – through new entrants – in the informal economy. Recent estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) suggest informal employment in five Latin American countries – Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, and Peru – increased from 52.9 per cent of total employment in 2007 to 53 per cent in 2008 and 53.6 per cent in 2009 (ILO 2009a).

WIEGO and WIEGO-Related Publications on Statistics

The following recent WIEGO and WIEGO-related publications provide data on informal employment and employment in the informal sector, as well as information on measurement methods relating to these concepts.

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