The ILO, the Politics of Statistics, and Changing Perceptions of Informal Work, 1970–Present

Abstract

Abstract The article contributes to the history of labor statistics by identifying the social, political, and epistemic conditions that led to the recognition of informal work as a countable form of labor. The article traces the ILO's efforts since the 1970s to capture the initially elusive concept of the informal sector in an internationally recognized statistical definition and to introduce it into national accounts. It also elucidates how the understanding of informal work broke away from its original focus on developing countries and expanded in the 1990s, at a time when the spread of nonstandard employment had led to an increase in informal employment in developed countries as well. By analyzing the decades-long attempts to develop statistics on the informal sector and informal employment, the article illuminates labor as an object of contingent (and contested) statistical definition and also shows how actors representing informal workers mobilized statistical knowledge for political action.