Multiple jobholding in the digital platform economy: signs of segmentation

Abstract

Although recent studies indicate that multiple jobholding is widespread in the digital platform economy, the interaction between people’s engagement with digital platforms and the conventional labour market is rarely explored. This article brings new insights into this interaction, exploring the income of individuals combining paid work in the conventional labour market with income from distinct digital platforms. Based on two large-scale representative surveys of a random sample of 18,000 people in 2017 and 2019 in combination with administrative register data, we demonstrate how labour and capital platforms attract different income groups. We also find that online income in combination with non-platform income sources such as traditional jobs exacerbate the segmentation tendencies found in the conventional labour market. An increasing share of rich and poor seem to use different platforms, indicating a potential hierarchy of labour market segments in both the online and the conventional labour markets.