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LFS research and development

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Introduction

The ILO Department of Statistics has an active programme of methodological research to identify and promote good practices in the collection and reporting of labour statistics. This work is done both to provide support to countries and to inform ongoing standard setting work. The research work spreads across a wide range of topics with a changing focus over time reflecting latest demands and work required to support standard setting and implementation.

A substantial body of ongoing research involves the identification of best practices in labour force survey (LFS) design. The ILO is pursuing a modular approach to LFS questionnaire design based on thorough development and testing. Such an approach seeks to enable elements of a questionnaire to be added or dropped as needed with the aim of increased flexibility over time and across countries. An initial modular LFS has been published based on a major pilot study programme undertaken between 2015 and 2017. Since then, the ILO has worked across a range of topics with the aim to identify good measurement approaches on key subjects such as work relationships, green jobs, volunteer work, education qualification and skills mismatches, labour migration and others. The ILO will seek to continue this process in collaboration with countries and other partners to build on and improve existing tools and guidance over time.

LFS projects

The ILO partners with national statistical offices from different regions of the world to ensure the tools and guidance developed are grounded in national realities and relevant to countries with different socioeconomic contexts. The ILO also works with international agencies including the World Bank, FAO, UN Statistics Division as well as development partners such as Data2x of the UN Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote wide implementation of ICLS standards across different household survey programmes and to improve knowledge sharing in survey design.

LFS pilot studies (phase 1)

Aligning national LFS with 19th ICLS standards
Between 2015 and 2017 the ILO conducted a 10-country pilot study to develop evidence on how best to update national labour force surveys to produce key headline labour market indicators on employment, labour underutilization and own-use production work, in particular subsistence food production, aligned with the new standards adopted by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians in 2013. Research findings are presented in the next section.
About ICLS

Sri Lanka pilot

Measuring labour force in multi-topic household surveys​
Through the Partnership on Women’s Work and Employment the ILO is collaborating with the World Bank and Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka to undertake a joint pilot study. The aim is to compare the outcomes from different types of surveys which can be used to generate statistics on labour, in this case a LFS and a Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS). The findings will be used to develop guidance on appropriate methods for measurement of labour-related topics in different types of household surveys.
See reports

Time use

Closing the gender data gap on unpaid domestic and care work
To develop guidance on integrating a time use module into national LFS, the ILO launched a new pilot project in 2020, funded by Data 2X and in close coordination with the UN Statistics Division and other UN agencies. The goal is to provide practical, evidence-based solutions to advance the production of statistics on unpaid domestic and care work (UDCW) in low- and middle-income countries – where demand for UDCW statistics is high but uptake of independent time use surveys is limited by their cost and complexity.
Learn more

Volunteer work

Capturing volunteer work through modular approaches in LFS​
The ILO established a partnership with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme in 2017 to advance survey methods for producing statistics on volunteer work. Volunteers contribute their time and skills to help others, through organizations such as NGOs, or directly in their communities. From 2018 to 2021, they partnered with national statistical offices to test a module on volunteer work, released updated practical guidance, and supported countries to include the module in their national LFS.
See tools

Gender and informality

Integrating gender in the standards for measuring informality
The ILO Statistics Department started a three-year project to engender informality statistics, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project is running in parallel to the broader review of standards for informality statistics and supports integration of gender in the new standards, and the development of gender-related guidance and tools for measuring informality. It involves testing of LFS questions and methods in two countries during 2021 and 2022.

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Research findings

Note: Many publications are available only in English. If available in other languages, a new page will open displaying the options on the right. 

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The ILO Department of Statistics is the focal point to the United Nations on labour statistics. We develop international standards for better measurement of labour issues and enhanced international comparability; provide relevant, timely and comparable labour statistics; and help Member States develop and improve their labour statistics.

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