Nicaragua, and Tajikistan, and two LSMS‐type surveys from Indonesia and South Africa (Table C in the Appendix). For those 14 countries, we also reviewed the DHS questionnaire as well as the LFS questionnaires. The LFS questionnaire was, however, not publicly available for 3 of the 14 countries. Although these four types of surveys have common elements, they differ considerably with regard to their objectives, structure, sample size, data collection method and data management plan. Table 1 highlights key differences.

Table 1: Main characteristics of LSMS‐type surveys, LSMS‐ISA surveys, LFS and DHS

|Survey|Objectives<br>M|ulti‐topic|Population|Type of data|Cross‐country<br>comparability|Data<br>availability|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|LSMS‐type<sup>1</sup>|(a) Fostering evidence‐based policy formulation on agriculture,<br>assets ownership, health, education, income and employment;<br>(b) Monitoring the SDGs and the living condition dynamics of<br>rural and urban households; (c) Facilitating randomized impact<br>evaluations; and (d) Assessing women and youth employment<br>and child activities|yes|5 years old and<br>above|cross‐sectional|±|public|
|LSMS‐ISA|(a) Improving the availability and the quality of smallholder<br>agriculture data within a multi‐topic framework; (b) Fostering<br>innovation and efficiency in empirical research on the links<br>between agriculture and welfare outcomes in the region|yes|5 years old and<br>above|panel|±|public|
|LFS|(a) Implementing policies for decent work, employment creation<br>and poverty reduction, income support as well as other social<br>programs, (b) Monitoring the SDGs and the living condition<br>dynamics of rural and urban households|no|10/15 years old an<br>above|d<br>cross‐sectional|yes|on country<br>base|
|DHS|(a) Monitoring changes in population, health, and nutrition, (b)<br>Providing an international database that can be used by<br>researchers investigating topics related to population, health,<br>nutrition|yes|15‐49 years old|cross‐sectional|yes|public|

Source: Based on LSMS‐ISA, LFS and DHS surveys. Table C in Appendix gives an overview of the reviewed surveys. Note:<sup>1</sup> The 2016 South Africa General Household Survey (GHS) and the 2010 Indonesia National Social Economic Survey (Susenas) are LSMS‐type surveys: they have similar objectives, cover similar topics and follow a similar approach as LSMS surveys.

LSMS‐ISA and LSMS surveys monitor most SDG labor market indicators, with time spent on unpaid domestic and care work being a notable exception (see Table 2 below and Table D in the Appendix). LFS also capture most of the SDGs but they cannot be used to monitor indicators that link employment to (household) income or poverty such as monitoring the working poor (SDG indicator 1.1.1.) or income of small‐scale food producers (SDG indicator 2.3.2). DHS, instead, only collect data on employment and occupation and can be used to monitor a few SDG indicators. All surveys allow disaggregation by age and sex.

A starting point of monitoring the SDGs and, more generally, studying labor markets is the classification of persons as either employed or unemployment/out of the labor force. Most of the reviewed surveys allow such a classification. There are a few exceptions such as the 2015/16 Ethiopia LSMS‐ISA survey that lacks a question on formal attachment to a job, which is required to correctly classify persons temporarily absent from their job. By contrast, fewer surveys allow distinguishing the unemployed from persons out of the labor force. This requires questions on job search and the availability to start working within the next (two) weeks. Whereas all 11 LFS include all required questions, 2 of the 8 LSMS‐ISA surveys and 3 of 6 LSMS‐ type surveys lack at least one of these two questions.

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