Between a rock and a hard place: Freedom, flexibility, precarity and vulnerability in the gig economy in Africa

Mohammad Amir Anwar,Mark Graham

doi:10.1177/1024529420914473

Abstract

The world of work is changing. Communications technologies and digital platforms have enabled some types of work to be delivered from anywhere in the world by anyone with a computer and an internet connection. This digitally-mediated work brings jobs to parts of the world traditionally characterized by low incomes and high unemployment rates. As such, it has been touted by governments, third-sector organizations, and the private sector as a novel strategy of economic development. Drawing on a four-year study with 65 workers in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, we examine the development implications of the gig economy on labour in Africa. We offer four analytical development dimensions through which platform-based remote work impacts the lives and livelihoods of African workers, i.e. freedom, flexibility, precarity and vulnerablity. We argue that these dimensions should be understood in a continuum to better explain the working conditions and lives of workers in the gig economy.

Highlights

Much of Africa has endured decades of economic stagnation and has been structurally dependent upon foreign aid and exploitation of natural resources, resulting in industrial decline, growth of unemployment and widening inequality (Bond, 2006; Carmody, 2011)
The International Labour Organization (ILO) (2018a) reports that nearly 85.8% of the employment on the continent is in the informal economy
As we show in the subsequent parts of the paper, gig work is a form of vulnerable employment for the African workforce where the power imbalance between workers and employers results from the reputational scoring system and the organizational management strategies found on platforms

Summary

Introduction

Much of Africa has endured decades of economic stagnation and has been structurally dependent upon foreign aid and exploitation of natural resources, resulting in industrial decline, growth of unemployment and widening inequality (Bond, 2006; Carmody, 2011). We bring discussions from the job quality research to problematize the contribution of the gig economy to the lives and livelihoods of African workers, focussing on the concepts of precarity and vulnerability. As Wood et al.’s (2019b) study shows the algorithmic management of platforms’ labour process influences workers’ autonomy, flexibility and power, which will impact the experiences of precarious nature of the gig economy among gig workers. Some forms of standard employment relations did develop but mainly in the formal sectors of the economy and at the expense of informal sectors which hosts the majority of the workforce (Webster et al, 2009) It is, not surprising that the emergence of the gig economy in rich countries is associated with the casualization and precarization of work (De Stefano, 2016). It is critical to understand how gig work contributes towards both the explicit and implicit precariousness in the lives of African gig workers and how their vulnerability is abused within this employment relationship and in many cases gets amplified as well, leading to adverse mental and physical impacts

Methodology

Findings

Conclusions