Gig work must do more than expand female labour force participation

There is a need to create an enabling ecosystem to support women’s economic participation and employment, including the integration of safe transport options and lighting and toilets (Representational Image: JasonArora/Shutterstock.com)

From how we hail a cab and make purchases to how we access a range of services, technology is transforming the way we live and work. Much of this new world is mediated by digital platforms. In the new platform economy – for better or for worse – full-time jobs are being broken into short-term gigs; hybrid, remote, and home-based work have become realistic possibilities; and a growing contingent of workers are self-employed.

Some believe that this seemingly flexible world of gig work will create more opportunities for women and will help improve female labour force participation.  A lack of data means that we can’t definitively confirm this contention, but it is a plausible one. Given that gig work is more flexible with respect to time and location than most regular jobs, many women find gig work to be an appealing proposition. But is just increasing women’s labour force participation enough?

It is well established that gender equity and increasing economic participation of women are associated with more growth, lower income inequality, and better development outcomes (IMF, 2018). Estimates suggest closing the gender gap in the workforce could add up to $28 trillion to global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). On the other hand, the economic disempowerment of women can result in losses estimated to range from 10 percent of GDP in advanced economies to more than 30 percent in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa.

Prevalence of gender stereotyping

But improving gender equity and harnessing the benefits of female labour force participation aren’t simply a matter of bringing more women into the labour force, these goals are equally contingent on whether the work leads to better economic outcomes and empowerment for women. In other words, just bringing more women into the labour market isn’t enough. Whether the work provides pathways for professional growth, the quality and conditions of work are also critical considerations if we want to reap the economic and social benefits of women’s participation in the labour force.

On these dimensions, gig work falls short. Evidence suggests that online labour markets are at risk of replicating many of the same offline biases that have long led to suboptimal employment outcomes for women.

First, inherent in the belief that women need – and yes prefer – flexible work is a tacit acknowledgement that women bear the disproportionate burden of domestic and care responsibilities that leave them with less time to engage in remunerated work than their male counterparts. When it comes to location-based gig work, workers not only have to undertake multiple gigs to piece together the income that they might otherwise have in a regular job, but when one accounts for the time, cost, and energy that goes into commuting to and from gigs, the benefits of time flexibility are eroded. Even when women have the flexibility to work from home, research suggests that a lack of time reduces the intensity of their work on platforms relative to men.

Second, safety, exploitation, poor conditions of work on the one hand, and patriarchal norms that would rather see women at home than in public spaces on the other, are among the factors that drive women’s preference for home-based gig work. In this sense, a woman’s choice to work from home is not entirely free; it is a constrained choice contingent on several factors including socio-cultural considerations. This in-turn has a bearing on access to social and professional networks and occupational trajectories.

Visibility challenge

Third, the lack of data on women’s work and their contributions has long rendered them invisible in policy and regulations. Home-based gig work exacerbates this challenge of invisibility. For instance, as the Ministry of Labour and Employment implements the Code on Social Security 2020, and certain States consider extending social security to gig workers through the creation of a welfare board, or fund, women in home-based gig work are at risk of falling through the cracks.

Fourth, as is true in the offline world, women in gig work also tend to participate in more ‘feminised’ tasks on platforms suggesting the prevalence of norms that still define the roles that women can pursue, or that they see themselves in. The range of economic activities that women engage in on platforms is narrower than men. With fewer options, women tend to concentrate in a few occupations even when remuneration is low. This continues to exert downward pressure on their earnings and working conditions.

The population of India’s working age women is perhaps more heterogeneous today than ever before. Women possess varying levels of education and skills; they come from a range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds; they have different threshold conditions for labour force participation; and they engage with digital labour platforms in different ways. So perhaps gig work will bring more women into the labour market, but without addressing the underlying concerns, platform-mediated work will continue to fuel, or perhaps even exacerbate, the same biases that women experience offline.

To this end, harnessing the potential of digital platforms to not only improve female labour force participation, but also improve labour market outcomes for women is contingent on addressing the socio-cultural norms that have constrained women for so long. There is a need to create an enabling ecosystem to support women’s economic participation and employment, including the integration of safe transport options, lighting and toilets; investment in childcare and other time-saving measures; and developing women’s human capital through equitable access to education, skills, and technology. The government should move iteratively toward public provision of basic social security for all workers, with targeted efforts to ensure that women are registered and visible to receive entitlements.  Finally, more gender-disaggregated data must be collected on the incidence, characteristics, and experience of women engaging in digitally meditated work through platforms.

Sabina Dewan is President and Executive Director, JustJobs Network, and Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.