This report examines the intersection of three dynamics that are reshaping labor market informality across developing Asia. The first is structural transformation, i.e., the long-run shift of economic activity and employment from agriculture to industry to services that accompanies economic development. The second is the rise of the gig economy, or the expansion of short-term, task-based, platform-mediated work arrangements that are creating a new category of workers who are neither traditionally informal nor conventionally formal. The third is the persistence of informality itself, i.e., the fact that structural transformation in developing Asia has not followed the historical pattern of advanced economies, where industrialization pulled workers into formal employment, but has instead produced a pattern in which workers move from agricultural informality into services informality, with formalization lagging behind sectoral transition.

Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Changing Face of Informality in Asia
Chapter 2: Structural Transformation and Informality: The Classical Framework and Its Limitations
2.1 The Lewis Model and Its Descendants
2.2 Structural Transformation in Developing Asia: The Empirical Record
2.3 Why Structural Transformation Has Not Delivered Formalization
Chapter 3: The Rise of the Gig Economy in Asia-Pacific: Scale, Scope, and Characteristics
3.1 Defining Gig Work
3.2 Scale of the Gig Economy in Developing Asia
3.3 Who Are the Gig Workers?
3.4 Gig Work as a Response to the Formalization Failure
Chapter 4: Old Informality, New Informality: How Gig Work Reshapes the Informal-Formal Boundary
4.1 A Comparative Framework
4.2 The Measurement Challenge
4.3 The Informality Continuum
Chapter 5: Determinants of Informality in the Age of Platform Work
5.1 Structural Determinants: What Has Not Changed
5.2 The Platform-Specific Determinants
5.3 The Interaction: How Structural and Platform-Specific Determinants Compound
5.5 Digital Infrastructure as a Determinant
Chapter 5A: Gig Work and the COVID-19 Pandemic — Accelerator and Stress Test
5A.1 The Pandemic Acceleration
5A.2 The Social Protection Failure
5A.3 Post-Pandemic Implications
Chapter 6: The Productivity Dimension: Are Gig Workers More or Less Productive Than Traditional Informal Workers?
6.1 Productivity Comparisons: Conceptual Challenges
6.2 Sources of Gig Worker Productivity Advantage
6.3 Productivity Constraints Specific to Gig Work
Chapter 7: Inclusive Development Implications: Social Protection, Gender, and the Gig Economy
7.1 The Social Protection Gap
7.2 The Gender Dimension
7.3 The Fiscal Dimension
Chapter 8: Policy Responses Across Asia-Pacific — What’s Working and What’s Not
8.1 India: The Code on Social Security 2020
8.2 Indonesia: Platform Regulation in a Fragmented Institutional Landscape
8.3 Republic of Korea: Gig Work in a Formal Economy Context
8.4 Thailand and the Philippines: Emerging Frameworks
8.5 Lessons Across the Region
8.7 Vietnam: Platform Growth in a Rapidly Formalizing Economy
8.8 Bangladesh: Gig Economy at the Frontier of Informality
Chapter 9: Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
9.1 Key Findings
9.2 A Differentiated Policy Framework
9.3 Cross-Cutting Recommendations
9.4 The Role of Regional Institutions
9.5 Looking Forward
References