Best Indicators for Global Labor Rights

Labor Rights Indicators

Many of us spend most of our lives working. The labor rights in a country are not only a signal of the respect for basic human rights in a country, but they are also a signal to businesses of whether they will expose themselves to reputational risk of supporting child or forced labor by investing in a market. Strong labor rights reduce poverty that is brought on by slavery, increase educational attainment by ensuring children are not taken out of school early to work, and increase productivity by ensuring that everyone has the right to earn a living wage.

Labor rights are generally broken down into four pillars:

1. Union Rights: The right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining,

2. Freedom From Slavery: the elimination of forced labor and slavery,

3. Equal Treatment: Fair treatment at work, including the elimination of employment discrimination, and

4. Elimination of Child Labor: the right to be free from child labor.

Any comprehensive measure of labor rights should do its best to cover all of these indicators. In what follows we outline some of the top indicators in each category.

Union Rights

1. The Global Rights Index (ITUC)

The International Trade Union Conference (ITUC) produces an annual index on worker's rights called the Global Rights Index. These data are based on expert assessment of the labor rights situation in a given country, focused on the rights to collective bargaining, freedom of association, and the right to strike. The data are primarily de facto data, based on surveys sent out to hundreds of labor unions around the country and expert assessment of public information.

The data is comparatively blunt, with countries just being grouped into one of 6 categories ranging from sporadic violations of rights (1) to no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law (5+), however this is one of, if not the only dataset that is looking at de facto violations of union rights as opposed to de jure labor laws and documented violations. The dataset codes 97 indicators for violations, with underlying scores ranging from 0-36. These underlying data are not made public, but are aggregated into the broad categories that are made public.

• Update Frequency: Annually in May.

• Country Coverage: 169 Countries (61 LIC/LMIC) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Expert Survey and Assessment

• Concepts Covered: Violations of collective bargaining rights, freedom of association, and the right to strike

• Further Disaggregation: None, further disaggregations by type of violation are calculated, but not published

• Ranking and Aggregation: Aggregated into 6 categories that are ranked: Sporadic Violations of Rights, Repeated Violations of Rights, Regular Violations of Rights, Systematic Violations of Rights, No Guarantee of Rights, and No Guarantee of Rights due to a breakdown of the rule of law.

2. SDG 8.8.2

Sustainable Development Goal 8.8.2 focuses on labor rights, specifically "Level of national compliance with labour rights (freedom of association and collective bargaining) based on International Labour Organization (ILO) textual sources and national legislation, by sex and migrant status." This index is largely a legal review of textual sources though it does review sources which document de facto violations of law as well.

The dataset looks at 102 different kinds of violations, grouped into fundamental civil liberties, right to establish and join a labor union, other union rights, right to collectively bargain and the right to strike. Each of those categories are split into de jure rights and de facto rights. Each is given a score between 1 and 10 (best to worst) and aggregated to a single score. As with the ITUC the underlying data are not public, but the final scores are. While the ILO conducts this analysis for all countries only data for countries which have ratified convention 87, the "Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention" and convention 98 the "Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention". Dora Sari is a good point of contact for these data.

• Update Frequency: Annually in the Spring.

• Country Coverage: 137 countries (47 LIC/LMIC) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Legal Review and Expert Assessment

• Concepts Covered: Violations of civil liberties, right to form unions, bargain collectively and strike

• Further Disaggregation: None, further disaggregations by type of violation are calculated, but not published

• Ranking and Aggregation: Aggregated into scores ranging from 1 (best) to 10 (worst) using a weighting scheme for each of the 102 violations.

3. Penn Labor Rights Indicators Database

The same team (Dora Sari and David Kucera) that produces the ILO's SDG 8.8.2, also has produced a dataset for the Penn State University Labor Rights Indicator Database in the past. These data use a very similar methodology to the ILO's SDG 8.8.2, but do not face the same restrictions on only publishing data for countries which have ratified conventions 87 and 98. This dataset also has further disaggregation of the data, breaking them down by in practice and in law violations. However, these data have not been update for many years. They may make a good choice for anyone interested in the ILO's methodology who wants broader country coverage, but is not worried about old data. If you are having difficulty accessing the dataset, you can find it here.

• Update Frequency: Irregularly, last update in 2017.

• Country Coverage: 185 countries (73 LIC/LMIC)

• Data Gathering Methodology: Legal Review and Expert Assessment

• Concepts Covered: Violations of civil liberties, right to form unions, bargain collectively and strike

• Further Disaggregation: Disaggregations by in practice and in law. Unweighted scores and the total number of violations are also published.

• Ranking and Aggregation: Aggregated into scores ranging from 1 (best) to 10 (worst)

Freedom From Slavery & Forced Labor

4. Varieties of Democracy

The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset is a wide ranging dataset that includes information on many crucial components of good governance, democracy, civil liberties, and much more. Data are gathered from an annual survey of over 4,000 experts around the world and normalized to a consistent scale. The produce over 500 indicators and hundreds of composite indices on a wide range of topics.

Included in this dataset is an index focused on forced labor and slavery. It is an aggregate of two underlying indicators measuring the freedom from forced labor for men, and the freedom from forced labor for women. Because of their normalization process there are several different versions of these data, the model outputs values ranging from -5 to 5 (no suffix), but these are also transformed into a version on the original scale for the questions: generally 0 to 4 (_osp suffix), and an ordinal version which takes the most likely whole number value 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 and reports that (_ord suffix). For more information on this, take a look at their codebook. Micheal Coppedge is a good point of contact for these indicators.

• Update Frequency: Annually in March.

• Country Coverage: 173 Countries (74 LIC/LMIC) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Expert Survey

• Concepts Covered: Forced labor for men and women.

• Further Disaggregation: Can be disaggregated by gender.

• Ranking and Aggregation: Several different estimates available, including the original model estimate, the original scale and whole numbers on an ordinal scale as described above.

5. Global Slavery Index

Walk Free, an initiative funded by the Minderoo Foundation, focused on eliminating modern slavery and forced labor around the world published the Global Slavery Index in 2023. This index captures tangible questions like the estimated number of people in slavery in a country, as well as concepts like the vulnerability of groups to slavery and the government response to slavery. The index conducts household surveys in some countries and uses imputation in other countries to estimate the prevalence of slavery. While this index has been published previously, earlier versions are difficult to find and the methodology has changed, making earlier versions not comparable to the current version.

• Update Frequency: Irregularly. The most recent version is from 2023, with a prior version from 2018, and another from 2016

• Country Coverage: 180 Countries (71 LIC/LMIC)

• Data Gathering Methodology: Household Surveys and Expert Assessment

• Concepts Covered: Prevalence of Slavery, Vulnerability to Slavery, Government response to Slavery.

• Further Disaggregation: Breakdown by specific sub-indicators

• Ranking and Aggregation: Countries are ranked based on the number of people per 1,000 estimated to be in slavery.

Equal Treatment & Employment Discrimination

6. WORLD Policy Analysis Center

The WORLD Policy Analysis Center out of UCLA conducts legal reviews of the de jure rights that are protected in law in countries around the world. Their data cover all kinds of issues ranging from workplace discrimination and gender equality, to health and education. They are one of the few datasets that has data on concepts like disability rights and child marriage. Their data are solely based on the legal frameworks in countries, not de facto data, however they cover a wide range of concepts, especially for the rights of working people.

With respect to employment discrimination, their data are quite detailed, with separate questions on discrimination in hiring, promotions, firing, equal pay, and harassment, based on each of a range of demographic questions: gender, race, disability, religion, age, migrant status, caregiving, social class, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Updates are irregular as some of their datasets may be updated when others are not. You can contact them here or via email (world@ph.ucla.edu).

• Update Frequency: On a rolling basis, some datasets are updated annually, others every 3 years.

• Country Coverage: 193 Countries (76 LIC/LMIC) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Legal Review

• Concepts Covered: Employment discrimination (hiring, firing, pay, promotions etc.) based on a range of demographic characteristics (gender, race, disability, religion etc.)

• Further Disaggregation: Each combination of type of discrimination and demographic characteristic is assessed separately.

• Ranking and Aggregation: Minimal. In addition to the specific questions the dataset has general questions which capture whether there is some legislation protecting a given group from workplace discrimination.

7. EPLex Prohibited Grounds For Dismissal

The EPLex database from the ILO answers a range of legal questions about the legal status of hiring and dismissal of employees in line with various UN conventions. These data look at range of questions related to the benefits that employees are entitled to with respect to fixed term contracts, probationary periods, grounds and procedures for dismissal, severance pay and redress. The dataset not only catalogs whether countries have these protections, but also cites the specific laws and protections in effect. This is a solely legal database that captures only whether these protections are written into law, not if they are actually enforced.

As with other ILO datasets listed here, there are limitations to the number of countries scored on each parameter, in part due to which countries have ratified the various treaties. The dataset relevant to the question of employment discrimination is the Prohibited grounds for dismissal dataset. While this dataset is usually stored here, at the time of writing that site is not loading correctly. An older version of the dataset which is actually live can be found here.

• Update Frequency: Irregularly, possibly updated as laws in countries are updated.

• Country Coverage: 113 countries (41 LIC/LMICs) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Legal Review

• Concepts Covered: Valid and prohibited grounds for termination, fixed term contracts, probationary periods, processes for dismissal, redress and severance.

• Further Disaggregation: Individual concepts are broken into categories (e.g. period of severance, different demographic ground protected by law, etc).

• Ranking and Aggregation: None.

Child Labor

8. WORLD Policy Analysis Center (again)

WORLD also has data on Child Labor. As with the above dataset on employment discrimination, the dataset on child labor is fully de jure, based on on the laws within a country, not whether those laws are actually applied. Conceptually this covers the minimum age for employment, the minimum age for hazardous work, and the minimum age for working more than 6 hours per day. It also includes the number of hours each night that children are guaranteed off from work.

• Update Frequency: Every 2-3 years.

• Country Coverage: 193 Countries (76 LIC/LMIC) in 2025

• Data Gathering Methodology: Legal Review

• Concepts Covered: Minimum age for work, hazardous work, more than 6 horus per day, and the time that children are guaranteed off from work.

• Further Disaggregation: None

• Ranking and Aggregation: Minimal. In addition to the specific questions the dataset has general questions which capture whether there is some legislation protecting a given group from workplace discrimination.

9. SDG 8.7.1

Where WORLD's indicator on Child Labor is purely de jure, this indicator is solely de facto, capturing the number of children who are engaged in economic activity, including separate indicators for children at different ages, and different kinds of economic activity. The challenges with this dataset are that it is incomplete and infrequently updated: only around 70 countries are covered. UNICEF also has a similar dataset, largely based on the same data.

• Update Frequency: Sporadically. There was a major update in 2022 for a number of countries, but nearly a third were updated before 2020.

• Country Coverage: 71 Countries (27 LIC/LMIC)

• Data Gathering Methodology: Household Survey

• Concepts Covered: Minimum age for work, hazardous work, more than 6 horus per day, and the time that children are guaranteed off from work.

• Further Disaggregation: Broken down by age group (5-11, 12-14, 15-17, and 5-17) as well as gender, rural/urban, school attendance status, etc.

• Ranking and Aggregation: None

Not Really Labor Rights Data:

There is a trend among a range of conservative indicators and think tanks of putting a "labor" indicator into their indices which is actually measuring the opposite of labor rights, rather it is measuring how easy it is for companies to ignore protections for workers. Some indices try to walk a middle path and include indicators from both sides. The following datasets are, at least in part, not really labor rights indicators. There may still be sub-components that are useful for an index of labor rights, but overall they would better be identified as "business rights" indicators.

Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom

The most egregious of these is the Heritage Foundation's Index of economic freedom. While many of the components of this index are actually useful or based on good underlying data, the "Labor Freedom" component of this indicator is not actually based in labor rights, but rather scores countries higher when they have low minimum wages, weak union rights, protections against discriminatory firing etc.

Business Ready (World Bank)

Business Ready combines the World Bank's Doing Business Report (which was cancelled due to data manipulation) with the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys. This dataset is a mixed bag when it comes to labor rights. The Doing Business Report's labor indicator was removed even before the report itself was cancelled following criticism from the global labor community. The labor indicator on the new Business Ready index has many of the same issues that the old Doing Business indicator did.

Looking at pillar 1 of this indicator showcases these contradictions. While 1.1 is a good measure of labor rights attempting to capture employment discrimination, union rights, child labor, forced labor, working conditions, minimum, wage, and more, the next indicator 1.2 punishes countries for the same policies. 1.1.2 rewards countries for having a minimum wage, but 1.2.2 punishes countries for having a minimum wage that is deemed to be "too high". 1.1.1 rewards countries for allowing workers to form unions, have laws against discriminatory firings, and have safe working conditions, while 1.2.1 punishes countries for regulating firings, fixed term contracts that are detrimental to labor organizing and for having employers providing employees with health insurance. 1.1.3 rewards countries for giving employees a notice period before firing them, while 1.2.3 punishes countries for giving employees too much severance. If you want a labor rights indicator, use 1.1, not 1.2 of this index.