Surveying the World of Informal Work: Interview with Sally Roever
13.Jan.2021 9:00 AM .
9 min read
Sally Roever is the International Coordinator of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), which is a global coalition devoted to “empowering the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy to secure their livelihoods.”
Can you give us a brief overview of the world of informal work today? What are the industries, sectors, and regions where it's most prevalent?
The first thing to say is that although informal work is understood in many different ways in different parts of the world, there is one international definition and conceptual framework for what it means. It’s a conceptual framework that was developed through the International Conference of Labor Statisticians that essentially means employment that's not covered by labor or social protection. There are two dimensions to it: employment in informal sector enterprises,which are enterprises that are not incorporated as entities separate from the household, and then there's informal employment outside the informal sector. In other words, there are informal jobs in firms and also in households. Another way of thinking about it is the kind of shadow economy or underground economy, and that's not at all what the international framework looks like.