Unfortunately, there are only a few African countries for which these data are available and, if this is the case, the data are typically available for only one year. Currently, these data are also unavailable for large developing economies such as China and India. The 1993 revisions retained the major categories, but attempted to better clarify the conceptual basis for the distinctions made and the basic difference between wage and self-employment. The effect this has when making historical comparisons is likely to be very small. There are important differences in status in employment between developed and developing countries.
Transition economies have even higher proportions of wage and salaried workers.
In developing countries, the proportions are much smaller for wage and salaried workers, but with greater variation. The proportions of self-employed and unpaid family workers are, therefore, much higher. Examples are Mexico, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In these economies, while employment has expanded in the formal industrial and services sectors, indicated by a rise in wage and salaried workers, it has also expanded into self-employment, a large part of which is likely to be informal sector employment. However, the relative rates of growth of wage employment and self-employment differ among countries.