A typology of labour agency in the gig economy: gig drivers' experiences of struggle in Indonesia during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Muhammad Yorga Permana

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article explores how ride‐hailing drivers, couriers, and food‐delivery riders in Indonesia exercised labour agency to improve their working conditions during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Drawing on a survey (N = 997) and in‐depth interviews (N = 30) with gig drivers in Jakarta, it contributes to labour geography and employment relations literature by reconceptualizing labour agency in the gig economy. Four modes of agency are proposed: (1) Individual resilience, (2) Individual reworking and resistance, (3) Collective resilience, and (4) Collective reworking and resistance. This article further presents main obstacles that explain why not all workers may exercise these practices: Fear of potential platform counteraction and moral dilemma hindered workers from resisting the platform. Identity struggles concerning the ‘driver‐partner’ status and the competitive nature of the platform work prevented workers' involvement in collective agency. Meanwhile, free rider problem, fragmented and leaderless movement, and collective frustration posed challenges for workers in translating collective feeling into active solidarity.

Keywords: Indonesia; labour agency; labour geography; gig economy; resistance; ride‐hailing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2025-11-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in New Technology, Work and Employment, 9, November, 2025. ISSN: 0268-1072

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/130109/ Open access version. (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Unavailable (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/130109/ [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/130109/)

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:ehl:lserod:130109

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().