Abstract
Previous studies show that gig economy‐based work opens up new ways in which inequalities are (re)produced. In this context, it is particularly important to look at female cleaners in private households, where gender inequalities intersect with other axes of disadvantage such as class, migratory experience, or ascribed ethnicity. This spatially and linguistically fragmented group presents challenges for scientific research, which is reflected in insufficient data available to date. The aim of the project GigClean—from which research for this article is drawn—is to address this gap. The guiding research question is: How do domestic cleaners in the informal labour market experience working in the gig economy? The methodological design consists of 15 problem‐centred interviews with platform‐based cleaning labourers in private households in Vienna, who predominantly operate in the informal economy. Our results suggest that undeclared domestic work via online plat‐forms is associated with increased power gaps between workers and clients as well as changing working conditions to the detriment of cleaners. Specifically, three recurring themes could be identified: reserve army mechanisms; lookism, objectification, and sexual harassment; and information asymmetry and control.
Subject
Sociology and Political Science,Social Psychology
Reference85 articles.
1. Adkins, L., & Dever, M. (2016). The financialisation of social reproduction: Domestic labour and promissory value. In L. Adkins & M. Dever (Eds.), The post-Fordist sexual contract: Working and living in contingency (pp. 129–145). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137495549_7
2. Anwar, M. A., & Graham, M. (2020). Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: Labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 52(7), 1269–1291. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x19894584
3. Barzilay, A. R. (2019). The technologies of discrimination: How platforms cultivate gender inequality. The Law & Ethics of Human Rights, 13(2), 179–202. https://doi.org/10.1515/lehr-2019-2006
4. Blanchard, O., & Hunt, A. (2022). Global perspectives on women, work, and digital labour platforms. A collection of articles from around the world on women’s experiences of digital labour platforms. Digital Future Society. https://digitalfuturesociety.com/app/uploads/2022/11/Global_Perspectives_on_Women_Work_and_Digital_Labour_Platforms.pdf
5. Bor, L. (2021). Helpling hilft nicht. Zur Auslagerung von Hausarbeit über digitale Plattformen [Helpling is not helping. The externalisation of domestic work via digital platforms]. In M. Altenried, J. Dück, & M. Wallis (Eds.), Plattformkapitalismus und die Krise der sozialen Reproduktion [Platform capitalism and the crisis of social reproduction] (pp. 148–167). Westfälisches Dampfboot.
Cited by
7 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献