Gig-Labor: Trading Safety Nets for Steering Wheels

Fos, Vyacheslav; Hamdi, Naser; Kalda, Ankit; Nickerson, Jordan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3414041

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…We find that workers often saw gig work as a solution after being let down by the unemployment office or aspects of the social safety net, consistent with past research that shows when employees are laid off they are less likely to apply for unemployment assistance when they have access to gig work, and that when unemployment rises so does the percentage of workers actively working through online platforms (Fos et al 2019;Huang et al 2020). As a result, instead of offering a rupture with the tenets of risk society or the neoliberal welfare ideology, the pandemic served to reinforce the risk society and ideology of individual responsibility.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Workers often saw gig work as a solution when they were let down by the unemployment office or aspects of the social safety net, consistent with past research that shows when employees are laid off they are less likely to apply for unemployment assistance when they have access to working for Uber (Fos et al 2019) and that when unemployment rises so does the percentage of workers actively working through online platforms (Huang et al 2020). This is an internalization of the risk society whereby workers believe that they—and capitalism—are their best option in times of need, further highlighting the rise of a risk society that individualizes social problems and requires a “biographical solution [to] systemic contradictions” (Beck 1992:137).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

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The Side Hustle Safety Net: Precarious Workers and Gig Work during COVID-19

Ravenelle

Kowalski

Janko

2021

Sociological Perspectives

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While social distancing measures are essential in limiting the impact of a pandemic, such measures are often less feasible for low-income groups such as precarious workers who continue to travel on public transit and are less able to practice social distancing measures. In this paper, based on in-depth remote interviews conducted from April 2020 through June 2020, with more than 130 gig and precarious workers in New York City, we find that precarious workers experience three main hurdles in regard to accessing unemployment assistance that can be broadly categorized as knowledge, sociological, and temporal/financial barriers. Drawing on worker interview responses, we have named these responses: (1) Didn’t Know, (2) Didn’t Want, and (3) Can’t Wait. These challenges have led workers to turn to gig and precarious work, further highlighting the inequities of the pandemic. As a result, for some workers, so-called “side hustles” have become their primary social safety net.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

The Side Hustle Safety Net: Precarious Workers and Gig Work during COVID-19

Ravenelle

Kowalski

Janko

2021

Sociological Perspectives

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“…While much of the literature on the effects of the gig economy focuses on its direct impact on gig workers, our work joins a small emerging literature exploring the spillover effects from the advent of large-scale gig platforms (e.g., Koustas, 2018;Fos et al, 2019). Our findings suggest that the gig economy plays a substantial role in spurring entrepreneurial entry by providing a form of insurance against entrepreneurial related-income volatility in the form of income fallbacks, and by providing a potential income supplement to those who engage in entrepreneurial activity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Launching with a Parachute: The Gig Economy and Entrepreneurial Entry

Barrios

Hochberg

2020

SSRN Journal

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The introduction of the gig economy creates opportunities for would-be entrepreneurs to supplement their income in downside states of the world, and provides insurance in the form of an income fallback in the event of failure. We present a conceptual framework supporting the notion that the gig economy may serve as an income supplement and as insurance against entrepreneurial-related income volatility, and utilize the arrival of the on-demand, platform-enabled gig economy in the form of the staggered rollout of ridehailing in U.S. cities to examine the effect of the arrival of the gig economy on entrepreneurial entry. The introduction of gig opportunities is associated with an increase of ~5% in the number of new business registrations in the local area, and a correspondingly-sized increase in small business lending to newly registered businesses. Internet searches for entrepreneurship-related keywords increase ~7%, lending further credence to the predictions of our conceptual framework. Both the income supplement and insurance channels are empirically supported: the increase in entry is larger in regions with lower average income and higher credit constraints, as well as in locations with higher ex ante economic uncertainty regarding future wage levels and wage growth.

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“…In this vein, our work is closely related to studies such as Koustas (2018), Fos et al (2019), andJackson (2019) who demonstrate that the gig economy can serve as an income fallback in down states of the world such as unemployment or job loss. For ridehailing specifically, our work also related to studies such as Hall and Krueger (2018) and Chen et al (2018), who explore the importance of flexibility to RH drivers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Launching with a parachute: The gig economy and new business formation

Barrios

Hochberg

2022

Journal of Financial Economics

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Rice University, 6100 Main St. MS-531, Houston, TX 77005. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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Gig-Labor: Trading Safety Nets for Steering Wheels

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

The Side Hustle Safety Net: Precarious Workers and Gig Work during COVID-19

The Side Hustle Safety Net: Precarious Workers and Gig Work during COVID-19

Launching with a Parachute: The Gig Economy and Entrepreneurial Entry

Launching with a parachute: The gig economy and new business formation

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