Online gig work is becoming increasingly important to workers living in low- and middle-income countries. This multi-year and multi-method research project shows that online gig work brings about rewards such as potential higher incomes and increased worker autonomy, but also risks such as social isolation, lack of work–life balance, discrimination, and predatory intermediaries. It also notes that online gig work platforms mostly operate outside regulatory and normative frameworks that could benefit workers.
The report summarises the ways in which observed risks materialise in the market, highlighting responses from a 456-respondent survey and stories from 152 interviews. The report’s central question is whether online gig work has any development potentials at the world’s economic margins. Its motive is to help platform operators to improve their positive impact, to help workers to take action to improve their situations, and to prompt policy makers and stakeholders interested in online gig work to revisit regulation as it applies to workers, clients, and platforms in their respective countries.
Professor of Internet Geography
Mark Graham is an economic geographer. His research focuses on digital labour, the gig economy, and digital inequalities. He is the author, most recently, of The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction.
Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research
Vili Lehdonvirta examines the politics and socio-economic impacts of digital technologies. He is one of the world's most cited authors on gig work and the platform economy. His current research deals with the geopolitics of digital infrastructures.
Former Researcher
Dr Wood is a sociologist of work and employment, focusing on the changing nature of employment relations and labour markets. As part of the iLabour project, he is currently researching worker voice, organisation and action in the online gig economy.
Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria
Former Researcher
Isis is a cultural sociologist focusing on emerging practices related to networked technologies. She is currently researching microwork and virtual production networks in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia with multiple colleagues at the OII.
Former Research Assistant
David Peter Simon is an ethnographer assisting the Microwork and Virtual Production Networks project funded by the IDRC and led by investigators Prof Mark Graham and Dr Vili Lehdonvirta.