Platform Inequality: Gender in the Gig-Economy

Why did we select this research?

Platform-facilitated labor is creating many changes in the labor market, and hence establishing fundamental challenges to the future of work and are generating contestation regarding the proper classification of laborers as employees or independent contractors. In this momentum of change, gender-related questions cannot be undermined.

Key findings:

• Gender inequality is re-configured and reproduced through platform facilitated labor, casting doubt on the liberating and equality enhancing promise platform-facilitated labor carries for women.
• Gender inequality is reproduced on platforms. Consequently, there is a need for beginning to contemplate legal, social and technological mechanisms to mitigate this phenomenon.

Reference:

Barzilay, A. R., & Ben-David, A. (2016). Platform inequality: gender in the gig-economy. Seton Hall L. Rev., 47, 393.