Data
Share of male workers in informal employment
What you should know about this indicator
- Informal employment encompasses all work activities done without formal arrangements (in law or in practice). Informality is a characteristic of the job, not the worker. These are often jobs without basic social or legal protection and employment benefits. It excludes illegal and illicit activities.
- This indicator is particularly important in low- and middle-income countries, where informal employment accounts for a large share of total work and provides a main source of income for many households.
- Employment refers to people of working age who worked for at least an hour during the reference period (typically a week), whether in paid employment or self-employment.
- This data follows the standards of the 13th International Classification of Labour Statisticians (ICLS). Under this framework, employment includes work for pay or profit, including self-employment, as well as the production of goods for own use (such as subsistence farming). Changes in the definition of employment also affect who is counted as unemployed or outside the labor force. Because definitions were updated under the 19th ICLS, data using the newer definitions is not fully comparable with data based on the 13th ICLS. You can read more about the definitions in this explainer by the ILO.
Share of male workers in informal employment
Share of employed males working in jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits. Does not include illegal and illicit activities. Figures refer to national estimates and may not be fully comparable across countries.
Source
International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 29, 2025
Next expected update
October 2027
Date range
2000–2024
Unit
%
Explore charts that include this data
What you should know about this indicator
- Informal employment encompasses all work activities done without formal arrangements (in law or in practice). Informality is a characteristic of the job, not the worker. These are often jobs without basic social or legal protection and employment benefits. It excludes illegal and illicit activities.
- This indicator is particularly important in low- and middle-income countries, where informal employment accounts for a large share of total work and provides a main source of income for many households.
- Employment refers to people of working age who worked for at least an hour during the reference period (typically a week), whether in paid employment or self-employment.
- This data follows the standards of the 13th International Classification of Labour Statisticians (ICLS). Under this framework, employment includes work for pay or profit, including self-employment, as well as the production of goods for own use (such as subsistence farming). Changes in the definition of employment also affect who is counted as unemployed or outside the labor force. Because definitions were updated under the 19th ICLS, data using the newer definitions is not fully comparable with data based on the 13th ICLS. You can read more about the definitions in this explainer by the ILO.
Share of male workers in informal employment
Share of employed males working in jobs that lack basic social or legal protection and employment benefits. Does not include illegal and illicit activities. Figures refer to national estimates and may not be fully comparable across countries.
Source
International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 29, 2025
Next expected update
October 2027
Date range
2000–2024
Unit
%
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
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.
Reuse this work
- All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
- All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.
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 of male workers in informal employment”. Our World in Data (2025). Data adapted from International Labour Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20251125-165536/grapher/share-in-informal-employment-male.html [online resource] (archived on November 25, 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 – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of male workers in informal employment” [dataset]. International Labour Organization, “Data from multiple sources” [original data]. Retrieved December 5, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20251125-165536/grapher/share-in-informal-employment-male.html (archived on November 25, 2025).