Abstract
Crowdwork is a new form of digitally enabled work in which organizations assign tasks to an anonymous group of workers via platform intermediaries. For crowdworkers, crowdwork offers both opportunities and risks. On the one side, crowdworkers enjoy high flexibility on when, where, and how much to work. On the other side, risks comparable to other forms of atypical employment arise: no labor regulation, unstable income, and uncertainty about whether enough tasks are available. Regulation of working hours lies within the crowdworkers’ own authority. Also, crowdwork in industrialized nations is often conducted during leisure times as a side-job to some other kind of employment. In accordance with Conservation of Resources Theory, we state that when leisure time gets used up with crowdwork, regeneration cannot occur and health declines. On a sample of N=748 German crowdworkers recruited from four different platform types, we analyzed whether participation in crowdwork is linked to increased somatic symptoms compared to regularly employed personnel. We found that crowdworkers show significantly increased somatic symptoms as compared to a German norm sample, that are stable across different kinds of tasks and platforms, gender, and age groups, and that is statistically due to the extent of participation in crowdwork. Specifically, we found that total work hours per week were not associated with an increase in somatic symptoms, but we did find associations with strain-based work–family conflict and the primary motivation to do crowdwork being to earn money. Consequences for research and labor regulations are discussed.
Highlights
Since the emergence of an internet-based, digital job market, crowdwork (CW) has increasingly become a relevant new form of work (Berg et al, 2018; Watson et al, 2021)
Hours of participation in CW and share of CW in total work hours are negatively related with work-life conflict (r = −0.02 to −0.21), but positively with somatic symptoms (r = 0.09 to 0.13), leading to the conclusion that the high flexibility of CW helps crowdworkers to better integrate work on the one side, and family and leisure activities on the other, but is still significantly related to an increase of somatic symptoms
We found no correlation between age and somatic symptoms, suggesting that somatic symptoms do not worsen with age, but that younger crowdworkers in particular exhibit more severe symptoms than their counterpart in the norm sample
Summary
Since the emergence of an internet-based, digital job market, crowdwork (CW) has increasingly become a relevant new form of work (Berg et al, 2018; Watson et al, 2021). A hallmark of CW is that the work is little regulated concerning who can participate on the platform as crowdsourcers or crowdworkers or concerning the duration of task commitments, resulting in a fully flexible job market. Due to the novelty of the concept, little is known about working conditions and the consequences of conducting CW from the perspective of the crowdworkers, especially consequences on crowdworkers’ health (Pesole et al, 2018). It could be assumed that CW is part of atypical work arrangements because the work is not regulated by law, the crowdworkers are barely organized, and their status (self-employed vs employee of a platform) remains unclear (Felstiner, 2011; Berg et al, 2018; Pesole et al, 2018). Qualitative research on crowdworkers’ perception of working conditions indicates increased stress levels due to overwork and inhibited regeneration from work (Huws et al, 2017)
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