Estimating and Analyzing the Scale of Informal Employment
——Examplified by a Study on Shanghai
Zhang Yan
Abstract: Since China’s reform and opening up, the wide existence of informal employment has become an indisputable fact. Nonetheless, there has been little quantitative information on the scale of information employment, which impedes the establishment of relevant regulation framework. In this paper, we first explore the challenges and methodology of estimating the scale of informal employment. We then conduct an in-depth analysis of the existing data in Shanghai. Using statistical inference, we are able to estimate two important statistics on the scale of informal employment in Shanghai during 2000 and 2007. Finally, we make a few concrete suggestions on how to move from estimation to official statistics.
Key words: Informal Employment, Estimation of Scale, Analysis, Official Statistics