GENEVA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Two billion people -- more than 61 percent of the world's employed population -- make their living in the informal economy, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said in a new report Monday.
The ILO noted that a transition to the formal economy is a condition to realize decent work for all in the report titled, "Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture."
Most of those working informally are in emerging and developing countries and the majority lack social protection, rights at work and decent working conditions, said the report.
The report shows that 93 percent of the world's informal employment is in emerging and developing countries.
In Africa, 85.8 percent of employment is informal.
The proportion is 68.2 percent in Asia and the Pacific, 68.6 percent in the Arab States, 40.0 percent in the Americas and 25.1 percent in Europe and Central Asia.
Two of the report's authors, Florence Bonnet and Vicky Leung, point out that while not all informal workers are poor, poverty is both a cause and a consequence of informality.
"The report shows that the poor face higher rates of informal employment and that poverty rates are higher among workers in informal employment," said Leung.
The report provides comparable estimates on the size of the informal economy and a statistical profile of informality using criteria from more than 100 countries.
When excluding agriculture, half of the employed population are in informal employment, according to the report.
Informal employment is a greater source of employment for men (63.0 percent) than for women (58.1 percent).
Out of the two billion workers in informal employment worldwide, just over 740 million are women.
Women are more exposed to informal employment in most low- and lower-middle income countries and are more often found in the most vulnerable situations.
Co-author Bonnet, said, "There is an urgent need to tackle informality. For hundreds of millions of workers, informality means a lack of social protection, rights at work and decent working conditions, and for enterprises, it means low productivity and lack of access to finance.
The level of education is a key factor affecting the level of informality, says the report.
Globally, when the level of education increases, the level of informality decreases, the report says.
People living in rural areas are almost twice as likely to be in informal employment as those in urban areas. Agriculture is the sector with the highest level of informal employment -- estimated at more than 90 percent.
