***** Over the past two decades, employment in the informal sector has risen rapidly in all regions. It was only the once-rapidly-growing economies of East and Southeast Asia that experienced substantial growth of modern sector employment. However, even in these countries, a significant percentage of women workers were in rural and informal employment before the Asian financial crisis: for example, 43 percent of women workers in South Korea and 79 percent of women workers in Indonesia. Moreover, in the wake of the recent crisis, most of these countries have experienced a decline in formal wage employment and a concomitant rise in informal employment.
Even before the Asian crisis, official statistics indicated that the share of the informal sector in the non-agricultural workforce ranged from over 55 percent in Latin America to 45-85 percent in different parts of Asia to nearly 80 percent in Africa. The contribution of the informal sector - not only its size - is quite large. The contribution of informal sector income to total household income is significant in many regions: for example, in several African countries, informal sector income accounts for nearly 30 percent of total income and over 40 percent of total urban income. The contribution of the informal sector to GDP is probably also significant. For those countries where estimates exist, the share of the informal sector in non-agricultural GDP is between 45 to 60 percent.
SIZE OF THE FORMAL ECONOMY
Low-Income Middle-Income High-Income
Countries Countries Countries
Share of 17% 58% 84% Formal Wage Employment in Total Employment
Source: World Development Report 1995. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
SIZE OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY
Informal Sector Latin America/Caribbean Africa Asia Share Of:
Non-Agricultural 57% 78% 45%-85% Employment
Urban Employment 40% 61% 40%-60%
New Jobs 83% 93% N/A
Source: Charmes, Jacques. 2000. Informal Sector, Poverty, and Gender: A Review of Empirical Evidence. Paper commissioned for World Development Report 2000/2001. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
The informal economy is a major growth sector
* The informal sector accounts for large share of output and employment * The informal sector accounts for more than half of non-agricultural employment in Latin American and the Caribbean, nearly half in East Asia and as much as 80 percent in other parts of Asia and Africa * The informal sector is responsible for 93% of new jobs in Africa and 83% in Latin America and the Caribbean * Nearly three-fourths of manufacturing in South East Asia is done by informal sector workers * For those countries where estimates exist, the informal sector accounts for 45 to 60 percent of non-agricultural GDP. . . .
(Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing, "Fact Sheets: The Informal Economy," <http://www.wiego.org/main/fact1.shtml>) ***** -- Yoshie
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