Stub 03 · International guidance
ILO and OECD notes on informal and secondary earnings as measurable stubs
National surveys do not invent their categories in isolation. International statistical guidance from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shapes how countries print definitions of employment, informal work and earnings onto household questionnaires. Stubroll reads those manuals as design specifications for stubs — what must be asked for a line to be comparable — not as instructions for any reader’s livelihood.
Informality as a measurement category
ILO guidance on the informal economy and informal employment distinguishes productive units and jobs that fall outside or only partly within formal regulatory frameworks. The point for secondary-earnings measurement is that “informal” is not a synonym for “side hustle.” It is a set of statistical criteria about registration, social protection and employment relationships. Treating informal earnings as a lifestyle label collapses a technical category into marketing language the manuals do not use.
When household instruments try to capture earnings beyond a primary job, ILO-aligned designs often ask about additional jobs, hours and, in some modules, income. Coverage still depends on whether respondents recognize informal tasks as employment and on the reference period. Guidance documents repeatedly warn that underreporting of informal and secondary activity is a known risk; the warning is about survey error, not about any individual’s behavior.
OECD earnings statistics and secondary lines
OECD labour and earnings statistics manuals emphasize consistency of concepts across member countries: employee versus self-employed, main job versus additional jobs, and the treatment of bonuses or irregular pay. Secondary earnings that sit in self-employment while the main job is wage employment require explicit questionnaire paths; otherwise the printed national table may understate combined activity.
Comparability across countries remains contested. Differences in informal-sector size, platform regulation and questionnaire wording mean that a cross-country ranking of “secondary earnings prevalence” can reflect instrument design as much as labor markets. Stubroll therefore avoids publishing league tables without naming the underlying concept and year. Where OECD or national notes flag breaks in series, those breaks are kept visible.
What guidance does not settle
ILO and OECD documents do not settle how every digital platform payment should be classified, nor do they prescribe a single best household question for gig activity. Member states implement guidance with national adaptations. Empirical papers that import ILO informality concepts into high-income survey contexts sometimes stretch the original criteria; that stretch should be labeled as an adaptation, not as a seamless international standard.
Named sources for this stub include ILO statistical guidelines and resolutions related to informal employment and the informal economy, and OECD methodological notes on earnings and labour force statistics. Contested applications include whether platform-mediated tasks should revise core employment questions or remain in supplements.
Editorial limits
This stub does not claim that informal or secondary work is common for any reader, does not recommend informal arrangements, and does not treat international manuals as personal advice. Stubroll does not publish testimonials. The page summarizes measurement guidance on how secondary and informal earnings are supposed to appear — or fail to appear — on survey stubs.