Speaker: Suntaree Saeng-ging, HNI Executive Committee member

This year marks the 10th anniversary of ILO Recommendation 204, a key tool for transitioning from the informal to the formal economy. No worker aspires to be labeled “informal”, yet over 2 billion people worldwide are in informal employment.

Home-based workers are a vital segment of the informal economy. In 2019, the ILO estimated there were 260 million home-based workers globally, representing 7.9% of the employed population.

Home-based workers work from in or around their homes, producing goods or providing services. Despite their contributions to the economy, they are often unrecognized as workers by governments and employers, and face challenges including long working hours under poor conditions, earning below minimum wages, and lacking social protection.

There are two categories of home-based workers:

  • Self-employed workers, who produce and market their own products. An example of a self-employed worker is a basket weaver.
  • Homeworkers are those subcontracted often through intermediaries and are paid per piece; they bear production costs, lack contracts or knowledge of primary employers. An example of a homeworker is a woman hired by an intermediary to cut thread.

To improve livelihoods, home-based workers need pathways to formalization through:

  1. Ratification of ILO Convention 177— which recognizes homeworkers as workers. Once ratified, governments must adopt, implement, and periodically review a national policy on home work, promoting equality of treatment.
  2. The national policy should lead to sector-specific laws, and regulations promoting decent work, such as the 2018 Sindh Home-Based Workers Act of Pakistan, which recognizes home-based work as work and provides legal recognition, social security, and minimum wages.
  3. Access to social protection. Thailand, for example, embeds social protection in its Constitution and national development plans, achieving near-universal health coverage.
  4. Support for organizations within the social and solidarity economy, vital for transitioning to formality; according to the ILO, 79% of informal workers are in informal-sector units