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this sector of the economy (Dijkstra and Hanmer, 2000). These women are still earning an income theybut are excluded from the definition and will not be accounted for in the calculation resulting in aninaccurate reflection of the active female labour force within the country. As a result the estimatedincome for females will most likely be lower than the real income." Defining the informal economy can range from country to country. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) defines the informal sector as: “businesses that are not registered in any way. They are generallysmall in nature, and are seldom run from business premises. Instead, they are run from homes, streetpavements or other informal arrangements” (Devey, Skinner and Valodia, 2006, p. 4). In 2000–2005,informal economy workers represented between 31 and 34 percent of South Africa’s labour force (Devey,Skinner and Valodia, 2006). This is a significant issue when 34 percent of the population is missing fromthe estimated earned income because they do not fit into the formal economy definition.The relationship between the wellbeing of women and the informal economy is that the,“majority of street traders are black women who trade in a range of goods including clothing, fruit andvegetables and a labour force survey conducted in 2000 estimated that there are 500,000 street vendorsin South Africa” (Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 2013, para. 3). This point is critical in calculating GDIand GEM because many working women who earn an individual and/or family wage are excluded fromthe calculation. It is not known how much the estimated earned income indicator would be effected ifinformal female workers were included in the GDI and GEM calculation, however it would be interestingto observe whether the income gap would decrease.Initial speculation would suggest that a more accurate reflection of the formal and informaleconomy would be represented if the women working in the informal sector were to be included in thecalculations, especially due to the large portion of women contributing to this sector. Statistics fromSouth Africa on the role that women fulfill in the informal economy suggest that the measurements wouldincrease and would constitute a more accurate reflection of women’s wellbeing. However, it is difficult todetermine whether women in South Africa working in the informal sector experience the same incomegap as their male counterparts in the same sector. Further, a more accurate depiction of this situationwould require the addition of both the male and female informal labour force to the estimated incomes.The result would be a more accurate representation regarding women and may also reveal similarincome gaps in the formal sector. In addition, the development of a separate indicator for evaluating menand women’s income in the informal sector would be helpful in understanding income inequalitybetween the genders. This would be a useful measure to observe whether there is a similar income gapsin the formal sector." Another criticism of the income portion of the GDI and GEM formulas is women’s share ofearned income is based on the male/female difference in urban wages rather accounting for rural or theinformal sector (Dijkstra and Hanmer, 2000). Specifically, the calculation only uses a nonagriculturalwage. This is problematic when calculating GDI and GEM in South Africa because the rural agriculturalsector is an important source for employment for women (Schuler, 2007). Hart and Aliber found that,“women represent almost two-thirds of those engaged in some form of agriculture, the majority of thesewomen do it primarily as a main source or extra source of household food” (2012, p. 2). Moreover, only incommercial farming are the number of women and men roughly equal. South Africa’s agricultural sectorcontributes a large portion to the national gross domestic product, at 12 percent compared to the fishingindustry at 0.5 percent (South African Government Information, 2013). With a population of 51 millionpeople and 8.5 million employees working in the agricultural sector (South African GovernmentInformation, 2013), it is reasonable to expect a change in the estimated earned income if an averagebetween agricultural and nonagricultural wages were included in the indicator." In response to criticism regarding crude measurements of calculating estimated earned income,the UNDP responded that, “because data on wages in rural areas and in the informal sector are rare, theHuman Development Report has used nonagricultural wages and assumed that the ratio of femalewages to male wages in the nonagricultural sector applies to the rest of the economy” (UNDP, 2008, p.33