Abstract

Researchers, policy advocates and organizations of workers need timely and accessible statistics on informality. However, these statistics need to go beyond the dichotomy of informal/formal. They need to “describe the situation of workers and economic units in the informal economy, highlight the heterogeneity and diversity of needs, deficits and opportunities and their contribution to the economy.” The organization Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) represents informed users of statistics who work with official statisticians at the international, regional and national levels to collect these statistics and to put them in the hands of a wide set of users. Since October 2019 WIEGO has been represented in the ILO Working Group for the Revision of the Standards for Statistics on Informality. This paper will discuss aspects of the proposed framework for statistics on the informal economy that are of particular interest to the informal workers, allies and advocates represented by WIEGO. It will focus on the changes represented in the standards and why the changes are important to WIEGO and its stakeholders.

The three aspects of the framework are: (1) The importance of an overarching framework for statistics on the informal economy to the production of key indicators, needed by WIEGO and others;(2) The integration of the new status category, dependent contractor, within the new framework on informal economy; and (3) The importance of an indicator framework for data tabulation and dissemination.

Authors: Françoise Carré, Gayatri Koolwal, Joann Vanek
WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing)
Contact: koolwalg@gmail.com