The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers

Measuring the Gig Economy: Current Knowledge and Open Issues

Cody Cook, Rebecca Diamond, Jonathan V Hall, John List and Paul Oyer ()

The Review of Economic Studies, 2021, vol. 88, issue 5, 2210-2238

Abstract: The growth of the “gig” economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favour women. We explore this by examining labour supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the U.S. We document a roughly 7% gender earnings gap amongst drivers. We show that this gap can be entirely attributed to three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences and constraints over where to work (driven largely by where drivers live and, to a lesser extent, safety), and preferences for driving speed. We do not find that men and women are differentially affected by a taste for specific hours, a return to within-week work intensity, or customer discrimination. Our results suggest that, in a “gig” economy setting with no gender discrimination and highly flexible labour markets, women’s relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based differences in preferences and constraints can sustain a gender pay gap.

Keywords: gender wage gap; gig economy; ridesharing; transportation; discrimination; J16; J31; J41; R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers (2018)
Working Paper: The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers (2018)
Working Paper: The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers (2018)
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