Employmentweb_low

EmpLoymEnT, work, And HEALTH inEquALiTiES - a global perspective
We follow here the approach taken by a recent International labour
Conference (Hussmanns, 2004), which used the term “informal
economy” for "all economic activities by workers and economic units
that are - in law or in practice - not covered or insufficiently covered by
formal arrangements". Informal sector and informal employment refer
to different aspects of the “informalisation” of employment and
correspond to different policy-making targets. The concept of an
informal sector refers to production units, while the concept of informal
employment refers to jobs. Thus, using a building-block approach the
framework disaggregates total informalisation of employment
according to two dimensions: type of production unit and type of job (see
Table 3). The type of production unit is defined in terms of legal
organisation and other enterprise-related characteristics, while type of
job is defined in terms of employment status and other job-related
characteristics. Production units are classified into three groups:
formal sector enterprises, informal sector enterprises, and
households. Jobs are distinguished according to status-in-employment
categories and according to their formal or informal nature. For
employment status, the following five groups from the International
Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE-93) are used: ownaccount
workers; employers; contributing family workers; employees;
and members of producers' cooperatives.
Table 3. conceptual framework of informal employment.
Products on
units by type
Own-account workers
Employers
Jobs by status in employment
Contributing family
workers
Employees
Members of
producers'
cooperatives
Informal Formal Informal Formal Informal Informal Formal Informal Formal
Formal sectors
enterprises
Informal sector
enterprises (a)
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8
Households (b) 9 10
(a) as defined by the 15th International Conference of labour Statisticians (excluding households employing paid domestic workers) / (b)
Households producing goods exclusively for their own final use and households employing paid domestic workers.
note: Cells shaded in dark blue refer to jobs, which, by definition, do not exist in the type of production unit in question. Cells shaded
in light blue refer to formal jobs. Un-shaded cells represent the various types of informal jobs.
Informal employment: Cells 1 to 6 and 8 to 10.
Employment in the informal sector: Cells 3 to 8.
Informal employment outside the informal sector: Cells 1, 2, 9 and 10.
source: hussmanns, r. (2004). Measuring the informal economy: From employment in the informal sector to informal employment.
Working paper no. 53. geneva: international labour office.
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