The number of workers who fall into the category of informal workers is rising. In both developed and developing countries, more women than men are active in the informal economy, and in developing countries, the majority of women who work do so informally. The conference was convened May 24 - 26, 2000. Martha Chen, the 1999-2002 Matina S. Horner Visiting Professor at the Radcliffe Public Policy Center, reports that the conference provided a good dialogue between activists and academics and that questions about the definition of work and how to classify workers were carefully examined. She pointed out that informal workers are not visible and not, therefore, taken into account in the existing analytical constructs of the labor market.
Informal workers fit neither category.
Jhabvala also urged a move away from the notion of a minimum wage toward that of minimum income, and she encouraged exploring ways to facilitate access to market opportunities, to credit, and to training for all those who work. The question of how a worker might be classified is a complex one, and as traditional international commodity chains adapt and change to include new forms of informal employment, a rethinking of operational definitions and concepts is in order. With the emergence of new forms of informal employment, the simultaneous need for new forms of adequate regulation becomes obvious. Activists who work in the field explained that there are informal costs to being considered informal, and that regulations could, in fact, confer benefits on informal workers. Activists reported that low-income workers were not trying to avoid registration and taxation, but rather seeking recognition of their work and their status.