This background note is one of three in a research series on wages and working conditions in different sectors, including tea, coffee and banana. The reports seek to contribute to a better understanding of the prevailing wages and working conditions in these selected sectors to feed into the knowledge base for setting of adequate minimum wages, statutory or negotiated. These background notes are undertaken as part of an ILO project on Indicators and methodologies for wage setting supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.