Happy riders are all alike? Ambivalent subjective experience and mental well‐being of food‐delivery platform workers in China

Wu, Philip Fei; Zheng, Ruoshu; Zhao, Ying; Li, Yixi

doi:10.1111/ntwe.12243

Cited by 10 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Among them, income satisfaction had the largest load, indicating that the income satisfaction greatly affected well-being. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies [ 24 ]. Ray [ 36 ] pointed out that there was a significant positive correlation between occupation satisfaction and well-being.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 95%

“…Social interaction positively impacted the well-being of migrant gig workers. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies [ 24 ]. Shirmohamm et al [ 38 ] proposed that emotional support from friends and community members was significantly associated with better life satisfaction and less depression and anxiety.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 95%

“…Fang and Sakellariou [ 23 ] used unconditional quantile regression to find that income, working hours, and health were more likely to affect unhappy migrant workers, while education and social security (such as medical insurance and endowment insurance) were positively related to their well-being. Wu et al [ 24 ] used the questionnaire data to construct a structural equation model, and found that both occupation satisfaction and social support could affect the well-being of food delivery workers. Specifically, job meaning perception and job autonomy affected their occupation satisfaction, and online communication among family members and colleagues affected their social support.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypotheses Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Measuring Well-Being of Migrant Gig Workers: Exampled as Hangzhou City in China

Chen

Song

et al. 2022

Behavioral Sciences

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The consistent innovations and applications of information technology drive the vigorous development of the gig economy, and generate gig workers such as food delivery workers and couriers, and make a great contribution to stabilizing employment and increasing income. Gig workers, mostly made up of migrants, and suffer from job and status difficulties. Research on the well-being of migrant gig workers can reveal the practical problems and provide suggestions for narrowing the wealth gap to promote social fairness and justice. Taking Hangzhou city in China as an example, this paper explores the well-being of food delivery workers, couriers, and online car-hailing drivers as representatives of migrant gig workers. Firstly, the relevant data are acquired through the questionnaire. Secondly, the characteristics of this group are analyzed through descriptive analysis, namely: most of them are migrant workers aged between 20 and 39with low occupation satisfaction due to insufficient social security coverage and limited well-being, despite relatively high income. Based on the analysis of differences in demographic variables and structural equation modeling, the factors affecting the well-being of migrant gig workers are studied, which mainly are occupation satisfaction, social interaction, and social security. The results show that occupation satisfaction is positively affected by family characteristics, social interaction, and social security. In addition, family characteristics and social security positively impact social interaction, but the former has no significant effect on well-being. Finally, this paper enriches the research on the well-being of specific migrant gig workers and gives policy suggestions for enhancing the well-being of migrant gig workers in Hangzhou city from the perspective of optimizing the mechanism, pilot construction, and platform provision.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 95%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 95%

Section: Literature Review and Hypotheses Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Measuring Well-Being of Migrant Gig Workers: Exampled as Hangzhou City in China

Chen

Song

et al. 2022

Behavioral Sciences

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“…A very strong cue for studying spatiotemporal (in)equities comes from Wu & Zheng [10] who take an important 'sociomaterial' perspective using a case study of Chinese food-delivery workers. They theorise that the 'reconfiguration' of space and time as the basis of, and that which shapes digital platforms.…”

Section: Spatiality Temporality and Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, a focused spatiotemporal angle with a detailed study of digital spatial and temporal elements in gig-work remains largely unexplored. A recent exception to this in IS research is Wu & Zheng [10] who strongly argue for a spatiotemporal perspective as a valid means to understand gig-work practices. Secondly, as protests unfold in south India within the food-delivery sector [11], there is growing interest for research on the workers experiences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal (In)justice in Digital Platforms: An Analysis of Food-Delivery Platforms in South India

Krishna

2020

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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With on-demand labour and location-based services becoming increasingly common, this paper explores the complex social justice impact of spatial and temporal elements of digital platforms. A conceptual framing of 'spatiotemporal justice' is proposed to explore the consequences of algorithmic control of space and time experienced by workers. An interpretive case-study is built focusing on work practices of food-delivery platforms in the south Indian city of Chennai. The qualitative methods used include semi-structured interviews of fooddelivery workers and an autoethnographic study by the author as a worker on digital platforms. The empirical analysis demonstrates that (in)justice is involved with the workers' negotiation of multiple micro-spatiotemporalities in their daily work practice. The impacts include workers being forced to balance spatiotemporal risk and stress against the benefits of employment. This is contextualised by inequities propagated due to imperfect digital representation of, and the asymmetrical information on spatiality and temporality within the platform. The workers are further affected adversely in their spatiotemporally subordinated power relationship with other groups of digital platform's stakeholders. Spatiotemporal justice as conceptualised here has direct implications in how future of work is defined, governed and how digital platforms are held accountable -particularly in the global South.

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Socio‐technical issues in the platform‐mediated gig economy: A systematic literature review: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

Dedema,

Rosenbaum

2024

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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The gig economy and gig work have grown quickly in recent years and have drawn much attention from researchers in different fields. Because the platform mediated gig economy is a relatively new phenomenon, studies have produced a range of interesting findings; of interest here are the socio‐technical issues that this work has surfaced. This systematic literature review (SLR) provides a snapshot of a range of socio‐technical issues raised in the last 12 years of literature focused on the platform mediated gig economy. Based on a sample of 515 papers gathered from nine databases in multiple disciplines, 132 were coded that specifically studied the gig economy, gig work, and gig workers. Three main socio‐technical themes were identified: (1) the digital workplace, which includes information infrastructure and digital labor that are related to the nature of gig work and the user agency; (2) algorithmic management, which includes platform governance, performance management, information asymmetry, power asymmetry, and system manipulation, relying on a diverse set of technological tools including algorithms and big data analytics; (3) ethical design, as a relevant value set that gig workers expect from the platform, which includes trust, fairness, equality, privacy, and transparency. A social informatics perspective is used to rethink the relationship between gig workers and platforms, extract the socio‐technical issues noted in prior research, and discuss the underexplored aspects of the platform mediated gig economy. The results draw attention to understudied yet critically important socio‐technical issues in the gig economy that suggest short‐ and long‐term opportunities for future research directions.

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Happy riders are all alike? Ambivalent subjective experience and mental well‐being of food‐delivery platform workers in China

Cited by 10 publications

References 78 publications

Measuring Well-Being of Migrant Gig Workers: Exampled as Hangzhou City in China

Measuring Well-Being of Migrant Gig Workers: Exampled as Hangzhou City in China

Spatiotemporal (In)justice in Digital Platforms: An Analysis of Food-Delivery Platforms in South India

Socio‐technical issues in the platform‐mediated gig economy: A systematic literature review: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

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