in this sample of the selfemployed work by themselves and work in firms of two to five employees as a consistency check we compared the two ilo definitions in firms with less than six employees roughly of female employees obtained all legally mandated benefits by contrast only of female employees working at firms with more than five employees stated that they lacked one or more legally mandated benefits in other words while of women in firms with less than six employees did not receive full benefit packages of women in firms with six employees or more received full benefits there is a significant difference between the average real hourly wages of formal women pesos and informal women pesos and this is initial evidence for a segmented labour market with formal workers earning more on average than informal workers