Data story: what informal workers really value William MaloneyGuillermo BeylisNathalie Gonzalez PrietoAndrés Zambrano August 25, 2026 This page in: English Español

Data story: what informal workers really value William MaloneyGuillermo BeylisNathalie Gonzalez PrietoAndrés Zambrano August 25, 2026 This page in: English Español https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/latinamerica/historia-de-datos-lo-que-los-trabajadores-informales-realmente-valoran Latin America and the Caribbean has spent nearly two decades with 55% of its workers in informality. Yet informality is not a homogeneous block. It brings together informal wage workers—typically young, with short job tenure and more exposed to distortions such as minimum wages and high hiring costs—and the self-employed, who tend to be older and remain in the sector for years. Each group follows a different logic. Traditional approaches assume these workers are shut out of formal jobs. But the report "Rationalizing Informality: Social Protection, Job Quality, and Growth" shows that this is only part of the story. Informal wage workers do show signs of exclusion, but the bulk of the sector, self-employment, follows a different logic: that of a rational choice. We explain it in three data stories.