Negotiating the Fragmented Workplace: Gender Pathways to Risk Management in the Gig Economy


Emily Hammond, University of Toronto

While gig work is not new, factors associated with the changing nature of work such as technological advancements, the erosion of the standard employment relationship, worker interest in flexible work and consumer desires to purchase goods and services online, have facilitated its increase by making it appealing and accessible to both workers and employers. Although there are benefits associated with the gig economy, such as schedule flexibility, low barriers to entry and feelings of having control over income, there are also noteworthy risks that worker’s must navigate; my focus here. These risks include getting hit by cars, physical assault, harassment, and sexual violence. In the absence of a boss or direct point of contact, a lack of workplace community and oftentimes insufficient or no training, workers must find ways to navigate these risks independently. They do so through in-depth information gathering to prepare for their work, turning to one another to fill gaps in their knowledge, seeking community for emotional support and taking preventative safety measures such as telling friends their whereabouts and using personal protective equipment including helmets and bike lights. These strategies invoke gendered norms in how risk is conceptualized and managed by workers. Drawing on data gathered from semi-structured qualitative interviews with ten women student sex workers, and ten men food delivery workers in Canada, this research illuminates the range of gendered work available for workers in the gig economy and how gendered work involves different emotional burdens and risks. While gig work comes in a variety of forms, both sex work and food delivery are gendered fields of employment. The available literature indicates that most student sex workers identify as women, many of whom are seeking men-identified clients. Likewise, although there is a lack of comprehensive data on the demographics of the North American platform-based food delivery workforce, many studies indicate that most workers are men. My analysis of sex workers alongside food delivery workers provides a compelling comparison case to analyze how gender norms are reinscribed in gig work for a few reasons. First, the rise of gig economy work has generated an outpouring of new scholarship, but most of it has focused on the experiences of men. As noted by several scholars, including Milkman et al. (2020), “research on gender and the gig economy is particularly sparse” (p.4). Similarly, little research has explored first person accounts of workers’ experiences with risk in gig work. Of the research that does exist, Gregory (2020) suggests that gender could be more deeply explored in relation to risk (p.13). Additionally, scholarship on gig economy work has focused largely on food delivery and ridesharing work. This has limited the analyses that can be gleaned from studying gig economy work in varying forms. This paper provides an original contribution by using gender-centered data to extend research looking at the precarity and associated risks of gig work to show how women experience and navigate these workplace hurdles differently. It is the first of many necessary discussions of the range of gendered work available in the gig economy and how gendered work involves different emotional burdens and risks for workers.

This paper will be presented at the following session: