Challenges of measuring women involvement in informal economy in fragility and adverse conditions

Abstract EN

Informal sector was internationally defined as a concept of labour force by the 15th ICLS in (ILO, 1993).

Estimates are available for Africa, Asia and some countries of Latin America (Delhi group, 2000).

However, these estimates are still often based on hypotheses originating in incomplete sources and not rounded in informal sector surveys.

Informal sector surveys are almost the only reasonable way to estimate the size and characteristics of informal sector.

Measurement of informal sector has been approached from social and economic perspectives.

The social approach focuses on the characteristics of informal sector as a source for employment, the contribution of the sector to total employment and the work conditions.

The economic approach focuses on the concept of labour force by the 15th ICLS in (ILO, 1993).

Estimates are available for Africa, Asia and some countries of Latin America (Delhi group, 2000).

However, these estimates are still often based on hypotheses originating in incomplete sources and not rounded in informal sector surveys.

Informal sector surveys are almost the only reasonable way to estimate the size and characteristics of informal sector.

Measurement of informal sector has been approached from social and economic perspectives.

The social approach focuses on the characteristics of informal sector as a source for employment, the contribution of the sector to total employment and the work conditions.

The economic approach focuses on the contribution to the GDP.

A number of methods have been used to measure informal employment and informal sector contribution.

The 1-2-3 survey, 1-2 survey and parallel mixed economic and social surveys are the most well known tools.

All these tools are challenged by the changing trend and irregular manner of women involvement in the economy across time and countries with different development stages.

In some countries, there has been an overall increase in the proportion of employment in the informal sector.

The proportion of non-agricultural workers in the informal sector has increased substantially for all types of work status, except for the regular wage/salaried females due to separating out the workers engaged in the employer households.

Many developing countries pass through adverse conditions and fragility.

These conditions have dominant impact on many dimensions of official statistics.

In this paper, we discuss the impact of adverse conditions and fragility on the methodological challenges facing official statistics in the measurement of women involvement in the informal economy.

The analysis shows that adverse conditions has dominant impact on the relevance of the measurement methods, and indicated the need for out of box modalities for measuring women involvement in informal economy in countries passing through fragility and adverse conditions.