Informal Workers in China and India

What do a struggling street vendor in Bombay and an underpaid domestic servant in Beijing have in common?

At a gathering last week at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, sponsored by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), researchers shared reports on the marginalized millions who toil in what's called the informal economy.

"Informality, Poverty, and Growth: Labor Markets in China and India" brought together economists, policy makers, and development specialists to analyze a growing body of data on the struggles of those who eke out a living outside the relative comforts of the formal economy. China and India, two economic powerhouses comprising 37.5 percent of the world's population, represented the focus countries for the research.

More women than men work in the informal economy. More women than men labor invisibly and undervalued, below the radar, without a safety net.

Shalini Sinha from the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), a trade association in India representing 1 million Indian women who work in the informal economy, presented on successes she's witnessed with small farmers and street vendors. Research on the problems these workers face has led to novel solutions to expand their power.

Others at the conference presented creative methods by which to measure the work of and reach out to people whose work by definition is dynamic, not static, who may be reachable one day but gone the next. Researchers are more than an outside, measuring presence -- their best work is context specific and results in extensive collaboration with the groups they study.

The increasing understanding of the conditions of informal workers opens the door for improved policy to recognize, value, and protect their economic contributions and human rights.