What are the myths of ‘women’s empowerment’ and ‘flexibility’ on digital labor platforms? What opportunities and challenges do women face in finding decent work in the gig economy?
After Janna Besamusca’s keynote speech, three prominent speakers joined the panel discussion to answer these questions and share their academic and professional experience in gender dynamics: Uma Rani, Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Organization; Anjali Krishan, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, and Grace Natabaalo, Research Lead at Caribou Digital, based in Kampala, Uganda.
The discussion was moderated by Olivia Blanchard, Senior Researcher, author of several reports on the impact of technology on society, and part of the WageIndicator Platform Work team.
From top left, counter-clockwise: Grace Natabaalo, Anjali Krishan, Uma Rani, and Olivia Blanchard
A COMPLEX PHENOMENON
What emerged the most during the panel debate was the phenomenon's complexity.
On the one hand, flexibility, empowerment, and entrepreneurship are the keywords.
As Uma Rani pointed out, ‘A substantial proportion of workers we surveyed from 2017 to 2019 were part of the traditional labor market as employees, before moving to micro-task and freelance platforms. They needed higher incomes and some sort of flexibility due to their child and old-age care responsibilities.’ Grace Natabaalo confirmed this trend, reporting that many women between 18 and 35 in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana use platforms to ‘make their own money, make their choices with the money they make, and, by doing so, be more independent.’
In many cases, she said, working from home is also safer and more fun! ‘They can enjoy their work and be creative.’ People with disabilities find great benefits from home-based jobs too.
On the other hand, despite these good narratives, Anjali Krishan explained that ‘when you look at the actual experience of workers in the gig economy, it can be extremely heterogeneous. It’s often extremely isolating, and workers are often highly surveilled.’
‘If you are a genuine freelancer,’ Uma Rani added, ‘you should have control over your work, how you do it, and when. However, workers have to be available during the hours when the clients are available.’ And there’s more: ‘We found out that they are asked to download and install software tools so that clients can check whether the work is done. Can you call this independence of flexibility?’
Anjali also made it clear that workers on platforms go through scams and frauds: ‘It happens when you are called to do a certain amount of work in a certain amount of time to get paid, but then something goes wrong, and you often end up losing quite a bit of money. More than this, digital work can become very addictive: you check your phone constantly to see whether you have been reviewed and whether new gigs are available, working much more than planned. Grace Natabaalo said it well: ‘The good sides of flexibility are also the bad sides of the flexibility.’ Grace also mentioned some cases of harassment women face on platforms as well as in the offline world.
And then the gender pay gap: both female and male workers on digital platforms tend to underestimate the number of hours the work could take, but, as Uma said, for women, it’s also true that ‘the kind of task they are more likely to choose are low-paid and low-skill tasks, replicating traditional labor market’s inequalities. Somehow, we think technology is gender-neutral, but the basic problem is: who designs these platforms? Who is behind them? Even today, men are more likely to be engaged in this job. And how are they setting it up? Are they designing platforms and algorithms for efficiency or fairness?’
Read also:
- Women in Gig Work: Web-Based Work Keynote Speech: What it is like being a woman and freelancer on Digital Platforms
- Women in Gig Work: Web-Based Work Best Practices Session: Practical solutions to overcome discrimination and bias
The WageIndicator Gig Team has scheduled the next webinar on October 27, 2023 ‘A Level Playing Field for Gig Workers’ will focus on the solutions to create equality for platform workers, through collective bargaining, fair representation, and more.