Jonathan Hall was an employee and shareholder of Uber Technologies before, during, and after the writing of this paper. Krueger acknowledges working as a consultant to Uber in December 2014 and January 2015 when the initial draft of this paper was written. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Uber, the ride-sharing company launched in 2010, has grown at an exponential rate. Using both survey and administrative data, the authors provide the first comprehensive analysis of the labor market for Uber’s driver-partners. Drivers appear to be attracted to the Uber platform largely because of the flexibility it offers, the level of compensation, and the fact that earnings per hour do not vary much based on the number of hours worked. Uber’s driver-partners are more similar in terms of their age and education to the general workforce than to taxi drivers and chauffeurs. Most of Uber’s driver-partners had full- or part-time employment before joining Uber, and many continue in those positions after starting to drive with the Uber platform, which makes the flexibility to set their own hours especially valuable. Drivers often cite the desire to smooth fluctuations in their income as one of their reasons for partnering with Uber.

for helpful comments and discussions. We are also grateful to Mattie Toma for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w22627.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

The growth of the “gig” economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore this by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the United States. We document a roughly 7% gender earnings gap amongst drivers. We show that this gap can be entirely attributed to three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences and constraints over where to work (driven largely by where drivers live and, to a lesser extent, safety), and preferences for driving speed. We do not find that men and women are differentially affected by a taste for specific hours, a return to within-week work intensity, or customer discrimination. Our results suggest that, in a “gig” economy setting with no gender discrimination and highly flexible labor markets, women’s relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based differences in preferences and constraints can sustain a gender pay gap.

, and Yale for valuable input. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w24732.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.