IOSH
Work, risk and the informal economy
Two billion workers worldwide are informally employed. Most are outside any system designed to keep them safe and healthy. This review, by RAND Europe for IOSH, maps the evidence and relationship between the informal economy and occupational safety and health and identifies calls for urgent action.
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informal economy workers worldwide
2 billion
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of global employment is in informal economy
60%+
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informal workers in low- and middle-income countries
93%
Why health and safety policies must include informal workers
The informal economy is not a marginal or temporary phenomenon. It is a structural feature of contemporary labour markets. Globalisation, urbanisation and technological change are all driving its growth.
Yet informal workers remain almost entirely outside formal worker health and safety legislation. They lack social protection and meaningful access to healthcare.
This scoping review was conducted by RAND Europe and commissioned by IOSH. It brings together global research and unpublished reports to show the health and safety risks in the informal economy. It identifies critical policy gaps and proposes evidence-based recommendations for governments, employers and health and safety professionals.
Improving the safety and health of informal workers is not merely a technical challenge. It is a matter of social justice and economic sustainability. It affects the majority of the world’s workforce.
Key findings: what the evidence shows
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Spans every sector and region
Informal work is most often in agriculture, construction and waste management. But it occurs across all industries – including registered enterprises with no worker contracts or protections.
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Higher rates of injury and illness
Informal workers face greater exposure to workplace hazards. Protective equipment is often absent. Awareness of risks is low. Access to healthcare and social protection is severely limited.
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Data is fragmented and insufficient
The evidence base relies primarily on small-scale case studies. Large-scale, representative data on health and safety risks among informal workers is largely absent. This limits effective policy design.
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Frameworks exclude informal workers
National and international worker safety legislation generally applies only to formally employed workers. The ILO's 1981 Convention is no exception. Billions of workers remain in a regulatory blind spot.
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Formalisation helps
Bringing workers into formal employment can improve legal protections. But it faces significant administrative, financial and enforcement barriers. In some sectors, it may also reduce income.
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Multi-level partnerships show promise
The most effective interventions combine top-down policy with bottom-up worker organising. They extend access to healthcare and social security and sustain dialogue between workers and authorities.
Calls to action
- Integrate informal workers into national worker health and safety legislation. Frameworks must be inclusive and adaptable to the diversity of informal work.
- Develop and enforce labour regulations that go beyond formal employer-employee relationships. Cover gig, home-based, seasonal and casual workers.
- Extend affordable healthcare and social security to informal workers. Remove financial and logistical barriers to access.
- Invest in large-scale, representative data collection on health and safety risks. Include informal workers in national labour force and working conditions surveys.
- Facilitate sustained dialogue between informal workers, worker organisations, employers and local authorities. Use this to co-develop targeted protections.
- Develop policies that are responsive to gender, age and migration status. Address the intersecting vulnerabilities of workers most at risk.
- Treat informal workers as a strategic priority, not a peripheral concern. Advocate for their inclusion in national and sectoral policy frameworks.
- Support development of context-sensitive risk assessment tools and training materials. These must be accessible to workers with limited literacy or formal training.
- Work with healthcare providers to integrate worker health and safety into primary care. This is especially important where most workers are informal.
- Build partnerships with worker collectives, grassroots organisations and NGOs. Use these to support awareness-raising and local safety improvements.
- Champion formalisation where achievable. But recognise the need for interim protections for workers who cannot or will not formalise.
- Prioritise large-scale, representative studies on health and safety risks among informal workers. Enable meaningful comparison with formal economy workers.
- Develop and evaluate innovative data collection methods. Reach informal workers who are invisible to conventional survey frameworks.
- Conduct rigorous impact evaluations of safety and health interventions in informal economies. This is a critical gap in the current literature.
- Produce case studies of countries with active informal worker safety strategies – notably Thailand and India. Examine what can be transferred globally.
- Strengthen intersectional research on gender, age and migration status in relation to informal work and health outcomes.
Calls to action – subject to review
We’ll review and update these calls to action following a co-hosted session on informality and occupational safety and health (OSH) with Lloyd’s Register Foundation later in 2026. This session will allow us and partners to undertake further discovery on the findings of the RAND Europe report to inform our policy calls to action.
