ABSTRACT
Whoever has walked in the streets of Latin American or African cities has been able to remark the numerous street vendors that can be found in the centers of the towns. These vendors are the most obvious among the workers of the informal sector, but they are not the only ones: Employees and owners of microenterprises, women working at home, agricultural workers, and servants belong to this economic sector that occupies more than half of the active population that we defi ne in this chapter as the workforce that contributes to national production, that is to say, laborers (employed or unemployed) in the formal or informal sector. The statistical institutes in northern countries do not include “illegal” or “extralegal” labor in their active population, but the Statistical Institute of Venezuela does so, as do most of the other institutes in southern countries.
