Statistics on Work - Brief No. 1 - What counts?

The Statistics on Work - Brief No. 1 explores the potential role of light time-use approaches to measure productive activities in view of the latest standards on work statistics adopted by the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2013. Country practices in light time-use survey designs are scarce. The Brief provides a critical overview of the available evidence, highlighting their cost-effectiveness and respondent-friendly features as key assets for their potential integration with Labour Force Surveys to measure different forms of work, provided context variables and simultaneous activities are included. The Brief further identifies the need for testing in developing countries, where challenges related to illiteracy and informality will need to be addressed in the instrument design and data collection strategy.