Unpaid labour in online freelancing platforms: between marketization strategies and self-employment regulation

Abstract

Sociology scholars have shown that unpaid labour is widespread in digital labour platform work, yet no study has shed light on the mechanisms generating unpaid work in the digital platform sector. This paper aims to fill this gap and points to the mechanisms produced at the interface between platforms' marketization strate-gies and the regulation of self-employment in national contexts to explain the way in which unpaid labour unfolds in online freelancing platform work. We base our argument on an empirical study that investigates work in four different online freelancing platforms and in four European countries, namely Italy, France, Bel-gium and Poland.