Gender wage gap in online gig economy and gender differences in job preferences

We explore whether there is a gender wage gap in the gig economy and examine to what degree gender differences in job application strategy could account for the gap. With a large-scale dataset from a leading online labor market, we show that females only earn around 81.4% of the hourly wage of their male counterparts. We further investigate three main aspects of job application strategy, namely bid timing, job selection, and avoidance of monitoring. After matching males with females using the propensity score matching method, we find that females tend to bid later and prefer jobs with a lower budget. In particular, the observed gender difference in bid timing can explain 7.6% of the difference in hourly wage, which could account for 41% of the gender wage gap (i.e. 18.6%) observed by us. Moreover, taking advantage of a natural experiment wherein the platform rolled out the monitoring system, we find that females are less willing to bid for monitored jobs than males. To further quantify the economic value of the gender difference in avoidance of monitoring, we run a field experiment on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), which suggests that females tend to have a higher willingness to pay (WTP) for the avoidance of monitoring. The gender difference in WTP for the avoidance of monitoring can explain 8.1% of the difference in hourly wage, namely, 44% of the observed gender wage gap. Overall, our study reveals the important role of job application strategies in the persistent gender wage gap.First author draf

Comparing gender discrimination and inequality in indie and traditional publishing

In traditional publishing, female authors’ titles command nearly half (45%) the price of male authors’ and are underrepresented in more prestigious genres, and books are published by publishing houses, which determined whose books get published, subject classification, and retail price. In the last decade, the growth of digital technologies and sales platforms have enabled unprecedented numbers of authors to bypass publishers to publish and sell books. The rise of indie publishing (aka self-publishing) reflects the growth of the “gig” economy, where the influence of firms has diminished and workers are exposed more directly to external markets. Encompassing the traditional and the gig economy, the book industry illuminates how the gig economy may disrupt, replicate, or transform the gender discrimination mechanisms and inequality found in the traditional economy. In a natural experiment spanning from 2002 to 2012 and including over two million book titles, we compare discrimination mechanisms and inequality in indie and traditional publishing. We find that indie publishing, though more egalitarian, largely replicates traditional publishing’s gender discrimination patterns, showing an unequal distribution of male and female authors by genre (allocative discrimination), devaluation of genres written predominantly by female authors (valuative discrimination), and lower prices within genres for books by female authors (within-job discrimination). However, these discrimination mechanisms are associated with far less price inequality in indie, only 7%, in large part due to the smaller and lower range of prices in indie publishing compared to traditional publishing. We conclude that, with greater freedom, workers in the gig economy may be inclined to greater equality but will largely replicate existing labor market segmentation and the lower valuation of female-typical work and of female workers. Nonetheless, price setting for work may be more similar for workers in the gig economy due to market competition that will compress prices ranges

Discrimination by Design?

Platform world is speeding the redesign of employment. Bricks-and-mortar firms once hired through narrow portals and then invested in the workers they hired, providing job security and predictable career ladders. Platform world flings the doors wide open to income-generating efforts, providing new opportunities but also offering security and predictable advancement to almost no one.Other legal scholars have mined these same data for gender disparities; they have found disparities in the platform economy arising from customer biases and individual preferences, and manifested in men’s and women’s different experiences in everything from pricing plumbing services to fraud prevention. Neutral-appearing algorithms may then amplify the impact on wages and opportunities. Because the outcomes are not equal, other scholars argue that these disparities should be actionable. Accordingly, they suggest various ways to adapt existing laws to remedy gender disparities.This Article is the first to develop an analysis of the multiple types of gender disparities in platform world. Rather than focus on the fact that disparities exist, this Article asks the question when—and even more provocatively, whether—they should matter.First, the Article documents the various sources and forms of gender disparities, setting up the argument that no one legal approach fits. Second, while some of those disparities are already actionable under existing antidiscrimination laws, even antidiscrimination law today rarely provides a viable cause of action simply because the results produce statistical disparities. In platform world, it’s not clear that the disparities are morally questionable, actionable under existing law, or appropriate subjects for regulation. The real issues in this new economy concern the lack of benefits, stability, and promotion opportunities. Antidiscrimination law can help those employed by platform companies, but not the gig workers who need health benefits and protection against harassment, nor the algorithms that need oversight. Consequently, existing antidiscrimination law is all but irrelevant except to address the most glaring discrepancies, and the real need is for a wholesale rethinking of the legal infrastructure necessary to realize the benefits of the platform economy for more than a few platform creators

Designing Individualized Policy and Technology Interventions to Improve Gig Work Conditions

The gig economy is characterized by short-term contract work completed by independent workers who are paid to perform "gigs", and who have control over when, whether and how they conduct work. Gig economy platforms (e.g., Uber, Lyft, Instacart) offer workers increased job opportunities, lower barriers to entry, and improved flexibility. However, growing evidence suggests that worker well-being and gig work conditions have become significant societal issues. In designing public-facing policies and technologies for improving gig work conditions, inherent tradeoffs exist between offering individual flexibility and when attempting to meet all community needs. In platform-based gig work, contractors pursue the flexibility of short-term tasks, but policymakers resist segmenting the population when designing policies to support their work. As platforms offer an ever-increasing variety of services, we argue that policymakers and platform designers must provide more targeted and personalized policies, benefits, and protections for platform-based workers, so that they can lead more successful and sustainable gig work careers. We present in this paper relevant legal and scholarly evidence from the United States to support this position, and make recommendations for future innovations in policy and technology

Digitalisation and Transformations of Women’s Labour in Sanitation Work

The waste management sector has attracted the private sector in India. Taking the case study of a start-up in waste sorting and recycling, the essayexamines how technologies used in such spaces affect women's work. It finds that there is a shift in the perceptions of who engages in this work and how thework itself is experienced and seen. But it also cautions against the perpetuation of the gendered division of labour in sanitation work, particularly in roles thatdemand technical (often digital) literacy/competence

Marginalization in the Future of Work: The Role of Intersectional Identities and Platforms in the Trajectories of Online Freelancers

This dissertation examines how platforms and identity attributes such as gender, race and occupation mediate individuals’ evolving participation and outcomes in online freelancing. I approach the investigation through an intersectionality lens to build insight into the dynamics of workers’ identity attributes and how these are embedded in online freelancing platforms. The research design draws on a longitudinal panel study with 108 online freelancers, working on Upwork.com. More than 400 interview and survey responses as well as secondary platform data are incorporated in the study’s analysis. Findings illuminate that platforms reinforce and exacerbate gender, race and occupation stereotypes. Data also demonstrate that identity attributes are not mutually exclusive but instead are interrelated and mediated through the platform’s features and terms. Over time, freelancers adjust their platform efforts to navigate their evolving work arrangements and the precarity of online freelancing. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of 1) the differential experiences of freelancers, 2) how platforms mediate intersectionality and marginalization and 3) the role of online freelancing in workers’ trajectories

Gender Equality in Virtual Work I.: Risks

This article focuses on gender equality in virtual work, taking special account of the regulatory challenges. It contributes to broader debates on the workers' situation in the sharing economy in two ways. Firstly, it makes an inaugural attempt to evaluate the implications of the new forms of work in the sharing economy for female virtual workers, looking at the issue of equal treatment. Secondly, it offers preliminary suggestions regarding a future regulation to improve equality between genders in virtual work. The paper is divided into four main parts. The first section defines "virtual work", classifies its two basic forms and emphasises the specific traits of this form of work to demonstrate the need of special protection against discrimination. Secondly, the paper identifies the possible beneficial and adverse implications of virtual work for female workers and gender equality. Thirdly, the paper provides a summary of the gender equality law of the European Union that serves as a point of reference when speaking about antidiscrimination law. Section 4 offers three normative perspectives and suggestions as to how to enhance gender equality in virtual work. Finally, the paper concludes. This first part of this two-part paper concentrates on the risks of virtual work for equal treatment, while the second part is going to address the regulatory options and suggestions