Data

Share in informal employment - Males

ILO

What you should know about this indicator

  • Employment refers to all persons of working age who, during a specified brief period, were in paid employment or self-employment.
  • Informal employment encompasses all jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits, regardless of the type of organization in which they are performed. It includes own-account workers, employers, and members of producers’ cooperatives operating in the informal sector; own-account workers engaged in producing goods exclusively for their household’s final use (such as subsistence farming); and contributing family workers, whether in formal or informal sector enterprises. It also covers employees in informal jobs, whether they are working in formal enterprises, informal enterprises, or employed as paid domestic workers by households.

How is this data described by its producer - ILO?

Data may differ from nationally reported figures and the Global SDG Indicators Database due to differences in sources and/or reference years. This indicator conveys the share of informal employment in total employment. Employment comprises all persons of working age who, during a specified brief period, were either in paid employment (whether at work or with a job but not at work) or in self-employment (whether at work or with an enterprise but not at work). Informal employment comprises persons who in their main or secondary jobs were (a) own-account workers, employers and members of producers' cooperatives employed in their own informal sector enterprises; (b) own-account workers engaged in the production of goods exclusively for own final use by their household (e.g. subsistence farming); (c) contributing family workers, regardless of whether they work in formal or informal sector enterprises; or (d) employees holding informal jobs, whether employed by formal sector enterprises, informal sector enterprises, or as paid domestic workers by households. Data disaggregated by economic activity are provided according to the latest version of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) available for that year. Data may have been regrouped from national classifications, which may not be strictly compatible with ISIC. For more information, refer to the Labour Market-related SDG Indicators (ILOSDG) database description.

Share in informal employment - Males
ILO
Informal employment relates to jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits.
Source
International Labour Organization (2025)with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 12, 2025
Next expected update
August 2026
Date range
2000–2025
Unit
%

What you should know about this indicator

  • Employment refers to all persons of working age who, during a specified brief period, were in paid employment or self-employment.
  • Informal employment encompasses all jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits, regardless of the type of organization in which they are performed. It includes own-account workers, employers, and members of producers’ cooperatives operating in the informal sector; own-account workers engaged in producing goods exclusively for their household’s final use (such as subsistence farming); and contributing family workers, whether in formal or informal sector enterprises. It also covers employees in informal jobs, whether they are working in formal enterprises, informal enterprises, or employed as paid domestic workers by households.

How is this data described by its producer - ILO?

Data may differ from nationally reported figures and the Global SDG Indicators Database due to differences in sources and/or reference years. This indicator conveys the share of informal employment in total employment. Employment comprises all persons of working age who, during a specified brief period, were either in paid employment (whether at work or with a job but not at work) or in self-employment (whether at work or with an enterprise but not at work). Informal employment comprises persons who in their main or secondary jobs were (a) own-account workers, employers and members of producers' cooperatives employed in their own informal sector enterprises; (b) own-account workers engaged in the production of goods exclusively for own final use by their household (e.g. subsistence farming); (c) contributing family workers, regardless of whether they work in formal or informal sector enterprises; or (d) employees holding informal jobs, whether employed by formal sector enterprises, informal sector enterprises, or as paid domestic workers by households. Data disaggregated by economic activity are provided according to the latest version of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) available for that year. Data may have been regrouped from national classifications, which may not be strictly compatible with ISIC. For more information, refer to the Labour Market-related SDG Indicators (ILOSDG) database description.

Share in informal employment - Males
ILO
Informal employment relates to jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits.
Source
International Labour Organization (2025)with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 12, 2025
Next expected update
August 2026
Date range
2000–2025
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

International Labour Organization – ILOSTAT

The ILO’s main online database, ILOSTAT, maintained by the Department of Statistics, is the world’s largest repository of labour market statistics. It covers all countries and regions and a wide range of labour-related topics, including employment, unemployment, wages, working time and labour productivity, to name a few. It includes time series going back as far as 1938; annual, quarterly and monthly labour statistics; country-level, regional and global estimates; and even projections of the main labour market indicators.

Retrieved on
September 17, 2025
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Labour Organization. (2025). ILO modelled estimates database, ILOSTAT [database]. Available from https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/.

The ILO’s main online database, ILOSTAT, maintained by the Department of Statistics, is the world’s largest repository of labour market statistics. It covers all countries and regions and a wide range of labour-related topics, including employment, unemployment, wages, working time and labour productivity, to name a few. It includes time series going back as far as 1938; annual, quarterly and monthly labour statistics; country-level, regional and global estimates; and even projections of the main labour market indicators.

Retrieved on
September 17, 2025
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
International Labour Organization. (2025). ILO modelled estimates database, ILOSTAT [database]. Available from https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/.

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We removed data points flagged as "unreliable" by the source (i.e. obs_status = "U" in the original data). These data points are likely to be inaccurate and misleading for analysis.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share in informal employment - Males”. Our World in Data (2025). Data adapted from International Labour Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250922-081316/grapher/share-in-informal-employment-male.html [online resource] (archived on September 22, 2025).
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

International Labour Organization (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Labour Organization (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Share in informal employment - Males – ILO” [dataset]. International Labour Organization, “ILOSTAT” [original data]. Retrieved September 22, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250922-081316/grapher/share-in-informal-employment-male.html (archived on September 22, 2025).