Risks and Risk-Mitigation Strategies of Gig Economy Workers in the Global South: The Case of Ride-Hailing in Cape Town

Mpofu, Tatenda; Tsibolane, Pitso; Heeks, Richard; Belle, Jean-Paul Van

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-65828-1_3

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…In China, gig workers use WeChat groups to discuss their work experiences (Vasudevan & Chan, 2022), compare earnings, complain, and buy or sell job-related equipment (Wu & Zheng, 2020). Similarly, drivers in South Africa share information via WhatsApp groups and sometimes meeting up when waiting at the airport (Mpofu et al, 2020). Seetharaman et al (2021) mentioned that online communities can connect the most vulnerable delivery workers (i.e., migrants, new recruits), helping them to feel welcome and learn community norms.…”

Section: Digital Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Section: Digital Labormentioning

confidence: 99%

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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“…While online modes of communication are a significant tool used by gig workers to advise each other on how to survive and optimize earnings (Woodside et al, 2021), Panimbang (2021) and Frey (2020) discuss how app-based cab drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers in Indonesia use both online and offline tools to engage in forms of mutual aid, especially during emergencies. All this points to a range of strategies that ‘partners’ have evolved to deal with the normalized risks to life and costs of platform work (Mpofu et al, 2020).…”

Section: The (Invisible) Labour Of Mutual Aid Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Mutual Aid Through the Lens of Social Reproduction: How Platform Drivers Ride Out Work and Life in Bengaluru, India

Medappa

2023

Journal of South Asian Development

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This paper presents an ethnographic account of the support and mutual aid mechanisms evolved by members of an app-based cab drivers union in Karnataka during the recurrent ‘waves’ of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also describes the app-based-driver-led infrastructures of support that were in place during ‘normal’ times, even before the pandemic. The paper deploys ethnographic methods and a feminist political economy lens to analyse the workings of platform capital and its processes of value extraction. While previous scholarship has presented platform workers’ everyday acts of mutual support as ‘resilience’ or as indicative of the ‘embeddedness’ of labour, this paper adopts an analytical lens drawing from Marxist and socialist feminist scholarship on social reproduction. I draw attention to the ‘productive’ work that everyday practices of support and mutual aid do for ‘technology platforms’ like Uber and Ola, and illustrate the mutual dependence and relation between the (capitalistically) ‘productive’ sphere and the reproductive sphere of life-making, and the heightened crisis of the latter engendered by newer modes of production. This paper reveals the gamut of unpaid and invisible labours which workers expend on an everyday basis and from which platform businesses extract value. It contributes to emergent scholarship on platform work and social reproduction feminism by pointing to spaces outside the home and institutions other than the family in providing reproductive labour that is generative of value for (platform) capital.

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“…From the strictly legal perspective, e‐hailing drivers in Nigeria are not employees; as such they are not accorded the same rights and privileges as formal workers and have limited recourse channels. Mpofu et al (2020) documented numerous risks facing e‐hailing drivers and argued that kinship networks and informal associations can be leveraged to mitigate these risks. However, our results indicate that, although it is not prevalent, a number of workers receive some form of social protection from the e‐hailing platforms of which medical benefits were the most frequent.…”

Section: Presenting the Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the strictly legal perspective, e-hailing drivers in Nigeria are not employees; as such they are not accorded the same rights and privileges as formal workers and have limited recourse channels. Mpofu et al (2020) documented numerous risks facing e-hailing drivers and argued that kinship networks and informal associations can be leveraged to mitigate these risks.…”

Section: Gig Work As Decent Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offline contexts of online jobs: Platform drivers, decent work, and informality in Lagos, Nigeria

Cieslik

Banya²,

Vira

2022

Development Policy Review

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Motivation:The Sustainable Development Goals targets include decent work for all by 2030 but progress in sub-Saharan Africa has been slow. Over the past five years, the platform work sector (e-hailing platforms in particular) has expanded considerably on the continent, providing work opportunities to the growing urban populations. The quality of this work, however, is heavily contested. Purpose: We deepen and extend our understanding of the gig economy in sub-Saharan Africa and assess its potential for creating decent work. Our unique contribution lies in looking at the gig economy in comparison to the local threshold (the informal economy) as opposed to wage employment. Methods and approach:We first review the literature on the gig economy, the informal sector, and decent work in low-and lower-middleincome countries. We then draw on a case study of e-hailing in Lagos, Nigeria, to assess the sector's potential to create decent work. We discuss our findings against the four pillars of the International Labour Organization's Decent Work Agenda: productive employment, labour standards, social protection, and social dialogue. Findings: We find that e-hailing platforms may offer certain gains compared to regular taxiing in the informal sector but these are context-and platform-specific. Examples include access to insurance, credit, and cash transfers. Gig work remains embedded in the informal economy: it is unregulated and does not abide by labour standards nor offer social protections. We also find evidence of well-organized labour movements. Policy implications: E-hailing may be productive work, as platform intermediation facilitates outreach and matching, translating into increased wages. This happens with the added cost of longer working hours in the absence of labour standards. We propose exploring the role of digital records kept by platforms (e.g. income volume and regularity, or customer ratings data) to facilitate the progressive transition of transport workers towards formality. We also recommend fostering industry standards (such as fair work certification) to protect workers' rights.

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Risks and Risk-Mitigation Strategies of Gig Economy Workers in the Global South: The Case of Ride-Hailing in Cape Town

Cited by 8 publications

References 12 publications

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

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

Rethinking Mutual Aid Through the Lens of Social Reproduction: How Platform Drivers Ride Out Work and Life in Bengaluru, India

Offline contexts of online jobs: Platform drivers, decent work, and informality in Lagos, Nigeria

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