Migration and Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy: An Intervention

Niels van Doorn, Fabian Ferrari and Mark Graham
Additional contact information
Niels van Doorn: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fabian Ferrari: University of Oxford, UK
Mark Graham: University of Oxford, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 4, 1099-1111

Abstract: In urban gig economies around the world, platform labour is predominantly migrant labour, yet research on the intersection of the gig economy and labour migration remains scant. Our experience with two action research projects, spanning six cities on four continents, has taught us how platform work impacts the structural vulnerability of migrant workers. This leads us to two claims that should recalibrate the gig economy research agenda. First, we argue that platform labour simultaneously degrades working conditions while offering migrants much-needed opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Second, we contend that the reclassification of gig workers as employees is by itself not sufficient to counter the precarisation of migrant gig work. Instead, we need ambitious policies at the intersection of immigration, social welfare, and employment regulation that push back against the digitally mediated commodification of migrant labour worldwide.

Keywords: employment regulation; gig economy; migrant labour; migration; platform economy; social policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170221096581 (text/html)

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:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:1099-1111

DOI: 10.1177/09500170221096581

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().