The sharing economy and the job market: the case of ride-hailing drivers in Chile

Andrés Fielbaum () and Alejandro Tirachini ()
Additional contact information
Andrés Fielbaum: TU Delft
Alejandro Tirachini: Universidad de Chile

Transportation, 2021, vol. 48, issue 5, No 4, 2235-2261

Abstract: Abstract Ride-hailing (ridesourcing) companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Didi Chuxing have been a disruptive force in the urban mobility landscape around the world during the past decade. In this paper, we analyse the working conditions, earnings, and job satisfaction of ride-hailing drivers. We begin by discussing the regulatory, labour, financial, and urban mobility effects of ride-hailing companies. Then, we present the results of a self-administered survey to ride-hailing drivers in Chile, which is complemented with the use of online tools for the estimation of driving earnings. Our findings show that the flexibility to choose work times is the most appreciated attribute of this job, even though most drivers follow a somewhat fixed routine each week. By contrast, the level of transparency with which ride-hailing apps determine driver pay is the attribute with the lowest satisfaction score. A large number of respondents drive for long daily and weekly periods, which is a health and safety hazard. Current drivers are not concerned about the future deployment of driverless vehicles for on-demand mobility services. Ordered probit models for job satisfaction show that ride-hailing was better evaluated by drivers who use it as a complement to another part-time job, by those who earn more money per week, and by those who have not experienced undesirable situations while working, such as harassment or traffic crashes.

Keywords: Sharing economy; Job satisfaction; Ridesourcing; Driving job; Transportation network companies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11116-020-10127-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:transp:v:48:y:2021:i:5:d:10.1007_s11116-020-10127-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11116/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11116-020-10127-7

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation is currently edited by Kay W. Axhausen

More articles in Transportation from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().