SPECIAL PUBLICATION LABOUR AND SOCIAL JUSTICE A MAJORITY WORKING IN THE SHADOWS A six-country opinion survey on informal labour in sub-Saharan Africa Rudolf Traub-Merz, Manfred Öhm, Julia Leininger, Florence Bonnet and Henrik Maihack(eds.) September 2022 Most workers in sub-Saharan Africa are informally employed, which often leaves them without access to health care and social protection. The surveys show that the demand for access to health services is the most important expectation of the informally employed. Interest in health insurance schemes is strong and there is a clear willingness to pay. There is, however, little trust in government to provide such access. The Covid-19 pandemic has further increased this demand. Because of the insufficient access to social protection and health services among the informally employed, they have been par­ticularly hard hit by the pandemic. The surveys reveal that pandemic­related income poverty is a key concern of informal labour.