Does the Platform clean the Cleaners?

Abstract

The paper presents the main findings of an exploratory study concerning the platformization of “dirty jobs” – specifically, cleaning work – in Italy, focusing on the Yoopies.it marketplace platform. Cleaning activity is inherently dirty work: an occupation that is likely to be perceived as disgusting or degrading and that has strong gender and ethnic connotations in Italy. Invisibility is ideal for this type of service, but what happens when the platform contributes to the visibility of dirty workers? Our main expectation is that marketplace platforms reproduce the historically gendered and racialized nature of domestic work, which is present offline. We selected and analyzed the content of 50 cleaner profiles in Bologna, Florence, Milan, and Rome for a total of 200 profiles within the Yoopies.it platform. The article shows that the platform does reproduce the historically gendered nature of cleaning work. Simultaneously, two further main findings emerge from our empirical analysis: 1) the platform creates new barriers to access to work, especially for migrant workers, and 2) the platform acts as a leveler of prices, though downwards.