Working hard and not being counted? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa on redefining employment
Photo: Amparo Palacios-Lopez/World Bank
In 2013, the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) profoundly changed international labor statistics standards: One important change (among many) is that going forward, only work done for the purpose of pay or profit is considered employment. Producing outputs only or mainly intended for one’s own or family consumption, common among smallholder farmers in many developing countries, no longer counts towards employment or labor force participation. Instead, this type of activity is being reported under a separate indicator of “own-use production work”. The revised standards, which are gradually being rolled out in national surveys and thus finding their way into official statistics, change the status of many smallholder farmers from “employed” to “not employed” but “engaged in own use production work , with signi