The polarisation of remote work

Braesemann, Fabian; Stephany, Fabian; Teutloff, Ole; Kässi, Otto; Graham, Mark; Lehdonvirta, Vili

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3919655

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Muszyński et al ( 2021 ) contend that the smoothing of labor supply and demand through employer–employee relationships is absent in crowdworking. Workers completing microtasks, in particular, are vulnerable to low hourly wages caused by labor oversupply, as microtasks require few skills and therefore have a low barrier to entry (Braesemann et al 2021 ). For many crowdworkers, however, microtasks could represent a gap-filling activity that is easily carried out between other activities and which therefore also pays a comparatively low wage (Teevan 2016 ; Newlands and Lutz 2021 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For many crowdworkers, however, microtasks could represent a gap-filling activity that is easily carried out between other activities and which therefore also pays a comparatively low wage (Teevan 2016 ; Newlands and Lutz 2021 ). During the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly more people turned to crowdwork as a source of income, thereby lowering average wages through increased competition and supply (Stephany et al 2020 ; Braesemann et al 2021 ; Muszyński et al 2021 ). However, even before the pandemic, Graham and Anwar ( 2019 ) identified a large oversupply of labor on one of the largest platforms for online freelancers worldwide (Kässi and Lehdonvirta 2018 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, a disproportionate number of workers on online freelancing platforms have earned at least a bachelor’s degree (Ross et al 2010 ; Bertschek et al 2016 ; Rani et al 2021 ). The mismatch between the average education of the general population and the people who work as online freelancers is especially high in developing countries (Berg et al 2018 ; Braesemann et al 2021 ). Because of the specific skill requirements in online freelancing, building longer-term relationships with workers who have done a good job in the past is often advantageous for requesters.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the subsample crowd contests, we could measure the standard deviation for 2 of the 3 observations the crowdworking market, and whether or not a study accounts for unpaid work. First, the skills of a crowdworker consist of at least two elements: the acquired skills that set the worker apart from others (Bayudan-Dacuycuy and Kryz Baje 2021; Braesemann et al 2021) and the experience gained by spending time on crowdworking platforms. While labor economics suggest that better-skilled workers earn higher wages, research has also shown that crowdworkers become more efficient over time, enabling them to earn higher wages (Rani and Furrer 2019;Sannon and Cosley 2019).…”

Section: Factors Determining the Hourly Wage Of A Crowdworkermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Hornuf

Vrankar

2022

Bus Inf Syst Eng

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In the past decade, crowdworking on online labor market platforms has become an important source of income for a growing number of people worldwide. This development has led to increasing political and scholarly interest in the wages people can earn on such platforms. This study extends the literature, which is often based on a single platform, region, or category of crowdworking, through a meta-analysis of prevalent hourly wages. After a systematic literature search, the paper considers 22 primary empirical studies, including 105 wages and 76,765 data points from 22 platforms, eight different countries, and 10 years. It is found that, on average, microtasks results in an hourly wage of less than $6. This wage is significantly lower than the mean wage of online freelancers, which is roughly three times higher when not factoring in unpaid work. Hourly wages accounting for unpaid work, such as searching for tasks and communicating with requesters, tend to be significantly lower than wages not considering unpaid work. Legislators and researchers evaluating wages in crowdworking need to be aware of this bias when assessing hourly wages, given that the majority of literature does not account for the effect of unpaid work time on crowdworking wages. To foster the comparability of different research results, the article suggests that scholars consider a wage correction factor to account for unpaid work. Finally, researchers should be aware that remuneration and work processes on crowdworking platforms can systematically affect the data collection method and inclusion of unpaid work.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Factors Determining the Hourly Wage Of A Crowdworkermentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Hornuf

Vrankar

2022

Bus Inf Syst Eng

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a result, a disproportionate number of workers on online freelancing platforms have earned at least a bachelor's degree (Ross et al 2010;Bertschek et al 2016;Rani et al 2021). The mismatch between the average education of the general population and the people who work as online freelancers is especially high in developing countries (Berg et al 2018;Braesemann et al 2021). The most popular site for such work is Upwork, followed by Freelancer.com, and…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Hornuf

Vrankar

2022

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the past decade, crowdworking on online labor market platforms has become the main source of income for a growing number of people worldwide. This development has led to increasing political and scientific interest in the wages that people can earn on such platforms. In this article, we extend the literature based on a single platform, region, or category of crowdworking by conducting a meta-analysis of the prevalent hourly wages. After a systematic and rigorous literature search, we consider 20 primary empirical studies, including 104 wages and 76,282 data points from 22 platforms, eight different countries, and a time span of 12 years. We find that, on average, microwork results in an hourly wage of less than $6. This wage is significantly lower than the mean wage of online freelancers, which is roughly three times higher. We find that hourly wages accounting for unpaid work, such as searching for tasks and communicating with requesters, tend to be significantly lower than wages not considering unpaid work. Legislators and researchers evaluating wages in crowdworking should be aware of this bias when assessing hourly wages, given that the majority of the literature does not account for the effect of unpaid work time on crowdworking wages. To foster the comparability of different research results, we suggest that scholars consider a wage malus to account for unpaid work. Finally, we find that hourly wages collected through surveys tend to be lower than wages collected via browser plugins or other technical data collection methods.

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Online Labour Index 2020: New ways to measure the world’s remote freelancing market

et al. 2021

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The Online Labour Index (OLI) was launched in 2016 to measure the global utilisation of online freelance work at scale. Five years after its creation, the OLI has become a point of reference for scholars and policy experts investigating the online gig economy. As the market for online freelancing work matures, a high volume of data and new analytical tools allow us to revisit half a decade of online freelance monitoring and extend the index's scope to more dimensions of the global online freelancing market. While (still) measuring the utilisation of online labour across countries and occupations by tracking the number of projects and tasks posted on major English-language platforms, the new Online Labour Index 2020 (OLI 2020) also tracks Spanish- and Russian-language platforms, reveals changes over time in the geography of labour supply and estimates female participation in the online gig economy. The rising popularity of software and tech work and the concentration of freelancers on the Indian subcontinent are examples of the insights that the OLI 2020 provides. The OLI 2020 delivers a more detailed picture of the world of online freelancing via an interactive online visualisation updated daily. It provides easy access to downloadable open data for policymakers, labour market researchers, and the general public ( www.onlinelabourobservatory.org ).

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The polarisation of remote work

Cited by 4 publications

References 54 publications

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

Online Labour Index 2020: New ways to measure the world’s remote freelancing market

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