Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2115258
R. Dewan
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Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2131260
Pratisha Borborah, K. Das
ABSTRACT Demonetisation of the Indian economy in 2016 facilitated significant changes in the lifestyle of people, particularly in adoption of digital transactions in everyday life. While there have been studies on mobile phones and the digital divide even prior to demonetisation, the growing gender disparity in the use of new technologies for secure payment via UPI (Unified Payment Interface) methods remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this paper explores the impact of new payment methods through digital means on street vendors in local markets through an ethnographic study based on narratives, unstructured interviews, and general observation. The study focuses on Assam while bringing out the larger socioeconomic context of the digital discrimination within the country. It locates how the government’s drive for digital economy post-demonetisation exacerbated the gender gap in access to technology in informal markets. The article observes how men use mobile phones and technology to sell their commodities while women vendors lag behind in ownership, usage, or access to such technology due to social norms and expectations. Subsequently, the study brings about the narratives on how women negotiate through such constraints to build their social ‘agency’ and identity in the market at both individual and collective level.
{"title":"Building agency: women vendors and gendered technology in informal markets in Assam","authors":"Pratisha Borborah, K. Das","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2131260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2131260","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Demonetisation of the Indian economy in 2016 facilitated significant changes in the lifestyle of people, particularly in adoption of digital transactions in everyday life. While there have been studies on mobile phones and the digital divide even prior to demonetisation, the growing gender disparity in the use of new technologies for secure payment via UPI (Unified Payment Interface) methods remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this paper explores the impact of new payment methods through digital means on street vendors in local markets through an ethnographic study based on narratives, unstructured interviews, and general observation. The study focuses on Assam while bringing out the larger socioeconomic context of the digital discrimination within the country. It locates how the government’s drive for digital economy post-demonetisation exacerbated the gender gap in access to technology in informal markets. The article observes how men use mobile phones and technology to sell their commodities while women vendors lag behind in ownership, usage, or access to such technology due to social norms and expectations. Subsequently, the study brings about the narratives on how women negotiate through such constraints to build their social ‘agency’ and identity in the market at both individual and collective level.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49019267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2125240
Priscila von Dietrich, M. Garcia
ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand how women’s work tends to be particularly affected by the new wave of Industry 4.0 technologies in Brazil and how public policies could actuate to reduce work gender inequalities throughout this process. We examine the 20 largest occupations for women and cross-check with estimates of automation for the Brazilian labour market from previous studies. We also analyse the women’s insertion in professional fields that have great growth potential. Among the main occupations, we identify a dual trend with high automation chance for jobs that require low or no qualifications and are low paid, and low displacement probability for caring-related professions. Furthermore, even though in Brazil women have higher education levels than men, they are under-represented in STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) areas. We point out that the main challenges for Brazil include the lack of investment in innovation and that gender-aware policies should be designed to overcome structural barriers and guarantee an equal insertion of women and men. Paid parental leave, equal pay for equal work, and public health and education services are essential to overcome inequalities based on traditional gender roles. Unemployment insurance, financial support, and incentives for qualification and requalification, as well as gender parity in educational and research institutions, are key for women to have full involvement in this new digital economy.
{"title":"New challenges for women workers in Brazil facing the wave of Industry 4.0 technologies","authors":"Priscila von Dietrich, M. Garcia","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2125240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2125240","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand how women’s work tends to be particularly affected by the new wave of Industry 4.0 technologies in Brazil and how public policies could actuate to reduce work gender inequalities throughout this process. We examine the 20 largest occupations for women and cross-check with estimates of automation for the Brazilian labour market from previous studies. We also analyse the women’s insertion in professional fields that have great growth potential. Among the main occupations, we identify a dual trend with high automation chance for jobs that require low or no qualifications and are low paid, and low displacement probability for caring-related professions. Furthermore, even though in Brazil women have higher education levels than men, they are under-represented in STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) areas. We point out that the main challenges for Brazil include the lack of investment in innovation and that gender-aware policies should be designed to overcome structural barriers and guarantee an equal insertion of women and men. Paid parental leave, equal pay for equal work, and public health and education services are essential to overcome inequalities based on traditional gender roles. Unemployment insurance, financial support, and incentives for qualification and requalification, as well as gender parity in educational and research institutions, are key for women to have full involvement in this new digital economy.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47321975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2118465
D. Eade
generalist audience but also is able to hold the attention of the reader. The use of life narratives personalises development and its impacts which in general terms has always been a macro process of change. She shows how the everyday lives of people on the ground have changed completely within a short span of time, altering gendered relations in Meghalaya. However, the general methodological critique for narrative research as being less valid and reliable due to lack of a well-defined approach to data analysis is applicable for this book too, as narrative forms the main subject of enquiry. Nonetheless, the book presents a convincing and logical flow of argument well substantiated with relevant references, making it a valuable contribution to development literature, particularly in the region. By elaborating more on the data collection and analysis process, the author could make the study more open to cross-examination. The book is able to contribute meaningfully to current debates around gendered transition in fast-changing societies, especially in indigenous societies. The book will be helpful for development scholars and practitioners, especially those who contribute to policy making in terms of development and development-induced displacement, and gender-related themes.
{"title":"Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care and the Planet – And What We Can Do About It","authors":"D. Eade","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2118465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2118465","url":null,"abstract":"generalist audience but also is able to hold the attention of the reader. The use of life narratives personalises development and its impacts which in general terms has always been a macro process of change. She shows how the everyday lives of people on the ground have changed completely within a short span of time, altering gendered relations in Meghalaya. However, the general methodological critique for narrative research as being less valid and reliable due to lack of a well-defined approach to data analysis is applicable for this book too, as narrative forms the main subject of enquiry. Nonetheless, the book presents a convincing and logical flow of argument well substantiated with relevant references, making it a valuable contribution to development literature, particularly in the region. By elaborating more on the data collection and analysis process, the author could make the study more open to cross-examination. The book is able to contribute meaningfully to current debates around gendered transition in fast-changing societies, especially in indigenous societies. The book will be helpful for development scholars and practitioners, especially those who contribute to policy making in terms of development and development-induced displacement, and gender-related themes.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46649728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2151729
U. Rani, R. Castel-Branco, S. Satija, Mahima Nayar
Digital technologies are bringing about a transformation in the world of work at a rapid pace. Today, digitalisation has penetrated almost all major sectors of the economy (ILO 2021). Digital labour encompasses a wide range of occupations, from software developers and programmers to domestic workers on digital labour platforms, to market vendors and microentrepreneurs who use digital tools to reach customers. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the process of digitalisation, as work and livelihoods shifted online. Yet it also exposed and exacerbated inequalities between the global North and South, and along the lines of gender, race, caste, and class. Limited access to digital infrastructure, low digital literacy, and repressive sociocultural norms are some of the common reasons cited for this digital divide. Across the global South, governments have embraced digitalisation with the hope that it will increase productivity and competitiveness and generate jobs. The latter is particularly important given the high and rising unemployment, amidst an ongoing process of deagrarianisation and deindustrialisation. Whereas the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and 1990s effectively reduced public investment in technological innovation, cutting much of the global South out of the dot-com boom, this new wave of digitalisation seemingly offers an opportunity to make up for the lost decades of neoliberalism. Indeed, digitalisation has been widely promoted by international development agencies as a policy pathway towards sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economic growth, with the ‘potential to improve social and economic outcomes for women (UN Women 2020, 1). However, Huws (2014) argues that digital innovation has facilitated the concentration of capital across industries and geographies, increasing their monopoly power, in a context where states’ regulatory capacity already hangs in the balance. As surplus value is increasingly derived from value extraction rather than commodity production, workers’ bargaining power has been severely undermined. Over the past decade, platform work has attracted significant interest from scholars in advanced economies of the global North, and it is now gaining attention from scholars in the global South. Much of the contemporary debate emphasises the misclassification of platform workers, lack of state regulation, and challenges in organising workers on digital labour platforms. The focus of the literature has generally been on male-dominated
{"title":"Women, work, and the digital economy","authors":"U. Rani, R. Castel-Branco, S. Satija, Mahima Nayar","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2151729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2151729","url":null,"abstract":"Digital technologies are bringing about a transformation in the world of work at a rapid pace. Today, digitalisation has penetrated almost all major sectors of the economy (ILO 2021). Digital labour encompasses a wide range of occupations, from software developers and programmers to domestic workers on digital labour platforms, to market vendors and microentrepreneurs who use digital tools to reach customers. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the process of digitalisation, as work and livelihoods shifted online. Yet it also exposed and exacerbated inequalities between the global North and South, and along the lines of gender, race, caste, and class. Limited access to digital infrastructure, low digital literacy, and repressive sociocultural norms are some of the common reasons cited for this digital divide. Across the global South, governments have embraced digitalisation with the hope that it will increase productivity and competitiveness and generate jobs. The latter is particularly important given the high and rising unemployment, amidst an ongoing process of deagrarianisation and deindustrialisation. Whereas the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s and 1990s effectively reduced public investment in technological innovation, cutting much of the global South out of the dot-com boom, this new wave of digitalisation seemingly offers an opportunity to make up for the lost decades of neoliberalism. Indeed, digitalisation has been widely promoted by international development agencies as a policy pathway towards sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economic growth, with the ‘potential to improve social and economic outcomes for women (UN Women 2020, 1). However, Huws (2014) argues that digital innovation has facilitated the concentration of capital across industries and geographies, increasing their monopoly power, in a context where states’ regulatory capacity already hangs in the balance. As surplus value is increasingly derived from value extraction rather than commodity production, workers’ bargaining power has been severely undermined. Over the past decade, platform work has attracted significant interest from scholars in advanced economies of the global North, and it is now gaining attention from scholars in the global South. Much of the contemporary debate emphasises the misclassification of platform workers, lack of state regulation, and challenges in organising workers on digital labour platforms. The focus of the literature has generally been on male-dominated","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48009429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2127574
Dipsita Dhar, Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat
ABSTRACT The expansion of digital labour platforms (DLPs) in South Asia has incorporated the pre-existing intersectional social inequalities, initiating new sites of exploitation and collective resistance which disrupt and negotiate the gendered labour's positions of vulnerabilities. This paper explores the case of a courageous strike by women workers of Urban Company (online beauty and home services platform) in New Delhi to hike their commission percentage amid the pandemic. We identify that the gendered labour's positions of vulnerabilities in DLPs are informed by the false promise of flexibility, algorithmic insecurity, lack of safety and security, and high dependence of workers on the platform. Against this backdrop, the women's resistance via informal unionism employed the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and informal kin networks to co-ordinate and develop solidarities and launch protest actions, with the support of the traditional trade union. Their limited success is evidence of the associational power of informal unionism, along with the visibility of women harnessing public attention as ‘sufferers of injustice’.
{"title":"Gendered labour’s positions of vulnerabilities in digital labour platforms and strategies of resistance: a case study of women workers’ struggle in Urban Company, New Delhi","authors":"Dipsita Dhar, Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2127574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2127574","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The expansion of digital labour platforms (DLPs) in South Asia has incorporated the pre-existing intersectional social inequalities, initiating new sites of exploitation and collective resistance which disrupt and negotiate the gendered labour's positions of vulnerabilities. This paper explores the case of a courageous strike by women workers of Urban Company (online beauty and home services platform) in New Delhi to hike their commission percentage amid the pandemic. We identify that the gendered labour's positions of vulnerabilities in DLPs are informed by the false promise of flexibility, algorithmic insecurity, lack of safety and security, and high dependence of workers on the platform. Against this backdrop, the women's resistance via informal unionism employed the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and informal kin networks to co-ordinate and develop solidarities and launch protest actions, with the support of the traditional trade union. Their limited success is evidence of the associational power of informal unionism, along with the visibility of women harnessing public attention as ‘sufferers of injustice’.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47267532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2131253
Laura A. Centeno Maya, Ana Heatley Tejada, Andr閟 Rebolledo Martinez, Alma Luisa Rodríguez Leal-Isla, M. E. Jaramillo-Molina, Roberto Carlos Rivera-González
ABSTRACT This article analyses the working conditions of women on food delivery digital platforms given that women’s experiences and gender inequality in this sector has been under-explored. Drawing on original survey and interview data on platform-based food delivery workers, we deploy an intersectional lens to explore the ways in which women, especially mothers and other caregivers, experience working in food delivery. Likewise, we analyse inequalities in opportunities and working conditions, and experiences between women and men delivery workers, focusing on income, motivations to join the sector, work environment, and occupational risks. The article finally concludes by providing some recommendations to policymakers to address and guarantee decent working conditions to workers in these new forms of employment.
{"title":"Food delivery workers in Mexico City: a gender perspective on the gig economy","authors":"Laura A. Centeno Maya, Ana Heatley Tejada, Andr閟 Rebolledo Martinez, Alma Luisa Rodríguez Leal-Isla, M. E. Jaramillo-Molina, Roberto Carlos Rivera-González","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2131253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2131253","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyses the working conditions of women on food delivery digital platforms given that women’s experiences and gender inequality in this sector has been under-explored. Drawing on original survey and interview data on platform-based food delivery workers, we deploy an intersectional lens to explore the ways in which women, especially mothers and other caregivers, experience working in food delivery. Likewise, we analyse inequalities in opportunities and working conditions, and experiences between women and men delivery workers, focusing on income, motivations to join the sector, work environment, and occupational risks. The article finally concludes by providing some recommendations to policymakers to address and guarantee decent working conditions to workers in these new forms of employment.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43738791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515
A. Tandon, Abhishek Sekharan
ABSTRACT Women have a long history of organising in the informal economy, despite facing several challenges around geographical dispersion, time poverty, and lack of recognition. These challenges persist in the platform economy which pose similar concerns around precarious irregular work. Recent literature has documented the adoption of traditional and novel strategies to resist platform exploitation, through algorithmic manipulation, public demonstrations and logout strikes, and legal action. This paper explores the gendered realities that shape workers’ organising strategies and demands. Using protests organised by women beauty workers in India as a case study, we discuss the factors underlying and leading to collectivisation. We find that women’s networks of information sharing and care are instrumental in navigating opaque and inefficient algorithms that fail to determine fully the organisation of work. We further examine the role of informal networks of information sharing in building workers’ identities which are instrumental in collective organising. Finally, we discuss the strategies and forms of organising adopted by women workers in this sector, which resonate with the rich history of organising in the informal economy.
{"title":"Labouring (on) the app: agency and organisation of work in the platform economy","authors":"A. Tandon, Abhishek Sekharan","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Women have a long history of organising in the informal economy, despite facing several challenges around geographical dispersion, time poverty, and lack of recognition. These challenges persist in the platform economy which pose similar concerns around precarious irregular work. Recent literature has documented the adoption of traditional and novel strategies to resist platform exploitation, through algorithmic manipulation, public demonstrations and logout strikes, and legal action. This paper explores the gendered realities that shape workers’ organising strategies and demands. Using protests organised by women beauty workers in India as a case study, we discuss the factors underlying and leading to collectivisation. We find that women’s networks of information sharing and care are instrumental in navigating opaque and inefficient algorithms that fail to determine fully the organisation of work. We further examine the role of informal networks of information sharing in building workers’ identities which are instrumental in collective organising. Finally, we discuss the strategies and forms of organising adopted by women workers in this sector, which resonate with the rich history of organising in the informal economy.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47236822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2131250
Arushi Raj, Fatima Juned
ABSTRACT With rapid digitalisation and technological advancements, the emergence of digital welfare states worldwide has become a reality. Broadly, the term digital welfare state refers to the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and digital tools to transform public and welfare services, such as biometric identification systems and automated systems to verify the eligibility of citizens for welfare benefits. This increased use of technological innovations and digital tools in governance is presented as a citizen-centric move that would improve accessibility and availability, and increase efficiency. However, one of the major critiques of the digitalisation of welfare systems is that it excludes people from disadvantaged sections who lack access to digital infrastructure and digital literacy from actively participating in society. In the context of the emerging Indian digital welfare state, this paper focuses on a particular marginalised community, that is, the transgender community in India, to understand their lived experiences of interacting with public digital systems. Historically, the transgender community in India has been socioeconomically marginalised, making them important beneficiaries of public welfare services. The Indian government recently introduced a gender identification digital system for the transgender community, which would be used to procure official gender identity cards and dispense social benefits and subsidies to them. This paper analyses the inequalities and exclusions faced by the transgender community in India in participating in the digital welfare system and highlights its potential human rights and policy implications.
{"title":"Gendered identities and digital inequalities: an exploration of the lived realities of the transgender community in the Indian digital welfare state","authors":"Arushi Raj, Fatima Juned","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2131250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2131250","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT With rapid digitalisation and technological advancements, the emergence of digital welfare states worldwide has become a reality. Broadly, the term digital welfare state refers to the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and digital tools to transform public and welfare services, such as biometric identification systems and automated systems to verify the eligibility of citizens for welfare benefits. This increased use of technological innovations and digital tools in governance is presented as a citizen-centric move that would improve accessibility and availability, and increase efficiency. However, one of the major critiques of the digitalisation of welfare systems is that it excludes people from disadvantaged sections who lack access to digital infrastructure and digital literacy from actively participating in society. In the context of the emerging Indian digital welfare state, this paper focuses on a particular marginalised community, that is, the transgender community in India, to understand their lived experiences of interacting with public digital systems. Historically, the transgender community in India has been socioeconomically marginalised, making them important beneficiaries of public welfare services. The Indian government recently introduced a gender identification digital system for the transgender community, which would be used to procure official gender identity cards and dispense social benefits and subsidies to them. This paper analyses the inequalities and exclusions faced by the transgender community in India in participating in the digital welfare system and highlights its potential human rights and policy implications.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43438604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2022.2121060
Paula Rodríguez-Modroño, Astrid Agenjo-Calderón, Purificación López-Igual
ABSTRACT The platform economy is conquering the domestic work and home care sector in countries of the global North as a response to the scarcity of affordable quality care services. Based on in-depth interviews with workers, firms and stakeholders, the objective of our study is to unravel the new mechanisms of exploitation and invisibility of this reproductive work, carried out mainly by migrant women from the Global south. This article deploys a feminist political economy approach to assess the new inequalities created by the intrusion of platform capitalism in the social reproduction sphere. Our study shows how the platform labour model fits perfectly in an informal and devalued care sector with a large labour supply composed of migrant women from the global South. Digital platforms take advantage of inequalities of gender, race, and immigration status to access a precarious workforce. The low reservation wage and lack of agency of migrant women, who are denied access to other sources of income and formal employment, act as key elements in the advancement of the mechanisms of exploitation and exclusion. Though care platforms facilitate access to work by migrant women, their working conditions are characteried by precarity, lack of access to social protection and unemployment benefits. Our results confirm that digital platforms have reinforced the ‘casualisation’ of labour markets, gendered segregation and subjugation in labour markets.
{"title":"Platform work in the domestic and home care sector: new mechanisms of invisibility and exploitation of women migrant workers","authors":"Paula Rodríguez-Modroño, Astrid Agenjo-Calderón, Purificación López-Igual","doi":"10.1080/13552074.2022.2121060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2121060","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The platform economy is conquering the domestic work and home care sector in countries of the global North as a response to the scarcity of affordable quality care services. Based on in-depth interviews with workers, firms and stakeholders, the objective of our study is to unravel the new mechanisms of exploitation and invisibility of this reproductive work, carried out mainly by migrant women from the Global south. This article deploys a feminist political economy approach to assess the new inequalities created by the intrusion of platform capitalism in the social reproduction sphere. Our study shows how the platform labour model fits perfectly in an informal and devalued care sector with a large labour supply composed of migrant women from the global South. Digital platforms take advantage of inequalities of gender, race, and immigration status to access a precarious workforce. The low reservation wage and lack of agency of migrant women, who are denied access to other sources of income and formal employment, act as key elements in the advancement of the mechanisms of exploitation and exclusion. Though care platforms facilitate access to work by migrant women, their working conditions are characteried by precarity, lack of access to social protection and unemployment benefits. Our results confirm that digital platforms have reinforced the ‘casualisation’ of labour markets, gendered segregation and subjugation in labour markets.","PeriodicalId":35882,"journal":{"name":"Gender and Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48470483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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