Employment Sector

The aim of this paper is to estimate the population of those persons in the labour market in developing countries who are poor and who work. Given that one important common focus of many international agencies is poverty reduction, it is surprising that this area is not too well researched. In particular for the ILO this issue is of special interest since its own focus is the world of work. This paper is a first step in estimating the working poor population in developing countries. Its main findings suggest that there were around 534 million persons who could be classified as the working poor in developing countries in 1997. The population was around 536 million in 1986. The working poor in 1997 constituted around 25 per cent of the employed labour force in developing countries, while around 95 per cent of them lived in low income countries. The slight decline that has taken place in the working poor populations over the decade is driven by changes in middle income countries. Working poor populations in low income countries have increased, in middle income countries they have declined. During the period, the share of middle income countries in the working poor has declined from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, while that of low income countries has increased from 88 per cent to 95 per cent. The decline (or stagnation