The framework on work statistics has been widely publicized over the years, particularly to data producers and policymakers, as it was designed to improve labour market and gender analysis. But little has been said to data users interested in international comparisons. Until now. Here is the ILOSTAT solution to handling the impacts of revised definitions occurring on different schedules across the globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare not only inequalities in the world of work, including between women and men, but it has also further emphasised the gender data gaps that hamper our understanding of the depth, nature and evolution of those inequalities.
The pandemic is radically impacting our lives. But what about the statistics used to assess those impacts? Without timely and accurate information, we will not act through adequate and informed policies. Though numbers should focus on the health of the population, we also need to understand what is happening in the domain of labour statistics. That is, how is COVID-19 affecting our working lives? What is less obvious, however, is that the pandemic is also affecting our ability to compile such statistics.
Equal opportunities for employment and equal treatment in employment are a key part of decent work. For LGBT+ workers facing labour market discrimination around the world, this is far from a reality. But in order to know the extent and forms of this discrimination, we need labour statistics on LGBT+ people.
Work and employment may be used indistinctly in everyday language, but for the labour market they mean very different things. Employment is a very specific form of work. Other forms of work include own-use production work, volunteer work and unpaid trainee work.
