Gender Pay Gap in the Gig Economy

It has long been recognized that consumption behavior represents mainly joint household or family decisions rather than separate decisions of family members. Accordingly, the observational units in consumption surveys are "consumer units," that is, households in which income is largely pooled and consumption largely shared. More recent is the recognition that an individual's use of time, and particularly the allocation of time between market and nonmarket activities, is also best understood within the context of the family as a matter of interdependence with needs, activities, and characteristics of other family members. More generally, the family is viewed as an economic unit which shares consumption and allocates production at home and in the market as well as the investments in physical and human capital of its members. In this view, the behavior of the family unit implies a division of labor within it. Broadly speaking, this division of labor or "differentiation of roles" emerges because the attempts to promote family life are necessarily constrained by complementarity and substitution relations in the household production process and by comparative

Do menstrual problems explain gender gaps in absenteeism and earnings?: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey

Historically, women have not been at the forefront of economic innovation – especially in the parts of the world where most people have little wealth and strong traditional gender norms. This is assumed to also be the case in the emergent gig economy, " in which digital platforms bring together workers and the purchasers of their services " (Hunt et al. 2019). The few relevant studies provide confirmation. Women face significant obstacles in access to the employment opportunities in platform-based economies (Kasliwal 2020), men are more likely to report that gig work is lucrative (Churchill and Craig 2019), and gender gap in earnings persists (Cook et al. 2021), and, despite the flexibility that gig work is supposed to provide, women employed in this format continue to report difficulties balancing job responsibilities with unpaid care and household work (Hunt et al. 2019). The results of our study described in this report, however, suggest, despite real difficulties associated with direct employment of women in the gig economy, and contrary to the myth of men being the driving force behind economic innovation, Russian women are largely responsible for the country's households' integration into the emergent digital platform-based marketplace. Methodology To our knowledge, this study is the first empirical exploration of gender patterns in Russia's gig economy. It was carried out as a part of the larger collaboration between the University of Iowa researchers and Russian researchers, entitled " Women and Informal Exchange Networks in Russia, " in 2021. As a part of this project, we surveyed 400 Russian women from four European Federal Districts-Central (172 women), NorthWestern (62 women), Southern (54 women) and Volga (111 women). Twenty-five cities and towns with population of over a hundred thousand residents were included in the sample plan: from cities over 1,000,000 people (except Moscow and St. Petersburg) we selected 20 women each; from Moscow-50; from St. Petersburg-30; from cities with population between 500,000 to 999,999 people – 15; from cities with population over 100,000 to 499,999 people – 10 in each. Our sample covered three age groups – 25 to 35, 36 to 45, and 46 to 55 years old. The data were collected through a telephone-based survey containing several types of questions – multiple-choice, scale-based, and open-ended questions. Unique to our survey was that, in addition to answering the questions directly, respondents also had a chance to explain their answers to the interviewer.

This study examines the determinants of labor force participation for men and women in Guinea for three sectors and for earnings. Employment includes self-employment private wage employment and public wage employment. Data were obtained from a survey of 1725 households in the capital city of Conakry in 1990. Labor force participation (LFP) was 40% for women aged 15-65 years and almost 100% for men aged 30-50 years. Men were engaged almost equally in all three sectors while women were mostly engaged in self-employment. Self-employed women tended to come from low-income households. All public sector employees were well-educated (about 10-12 years). Average levels of education among the self-employed were very low (2-3 years). In the private wage sector men averaged 5 years and women averaged 9 years of schooling. 47% of men and 59% of women in the public sector were in professional or managerial jobs. In the private sector over 50% of women were in professional managerial or clerical jobs compared to only 16% of men. Few women in the private sector were engaged in skilled trades or unskilled work. Most self-employed women and only 50% of men tended to work in retail trade. Migration during the past 5 years was positively associated with mens entry in self-employment and the private sector and negatively associated with their public sector employment. Determinants of womens self-employment included residence near commercial areas of the center city electricity in the house and work activity during the rainy season of April-September. Fulani and Malinke women were less likely to be self-employed. For women the benefits of education and experience declined after a certain level. Returns to schooling were high for both genders. Men earned more than women. There is a need to increase educational and employment opportunities for women.

The intuition underlying our analysis of these data is simple and direct. Each yearbook entry shows the proportion of female workers and the average wage of all workers. If mens wages exceed womens wages by a substantial margin we expect a negative association between the proportion of female workers and the average wage: the higher the proportion of women the lower the average wage. Applying econometric methods to large numbers of such observations permits us to obtain statistical estimates of the gender wage gap in Chinas urban labour markets. We seek answers to a series of interrelated questions. Do men earn more than women? If so is the wage gap large or small? Does the male-female wage differential rise or fall over time? To what extent can the wage gap be attributed to specific factors such as location economic sector type of ownership (state collective other) or educational attainments? What is the size and trend of the residual male-female wage inequalities which persist after we apply statistical controls for these factors? To what extent are women crowded into low-paying industries? (excerpt)

Gender earnings gaps in Hong Kong: Empirical evidence from across the earnings distribution in 2006

Three years into the COVID‐19 pandemic, this article considers the longer‐lasting economic impacts on the Australian workforce through a gender lens. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics data, it analyses changes in employment, earnings and educational participation relative to the pre‐pandemic trends that were predicted to have otherwise occurred. Despite women's employment moving back towards pre‐pandemic levels more rapidly than men's, the pandemic also saw a widening of the gender gap in earnings and a larger fall in women's educational participation. This paper highlights the need for ongoing monitoring of labour market indicators through a gender lens to inform more responsive policy design.

The development of the term "gig economy" is an alternative for workers amid economic instability where the basis of work is based on market demand. The gig economy system is characterized as freelancers or independent contractors who have short-term working relationships with a number of clients in return for a wage determined according to the task or amount of work. The purpose of this study is to explain and assess how elements such as religiosity, compensation, and work rights protection affect the productivity of the "gig economy" workforce in the ride-hailing services PT Gojek Indonesia. The object of this study, 122 GoJek drivers in Jabodetabek were surveyed quantitatively using the structural equation modeling method (SEM-PLS). The result of this study indicates that the factors of religiosity, compensation, work rights protection have a significant effect on the productivity of the "gig economy" workforce in ride-hailing services. The compensation factor is the most important one.

Women's earnings inequality persists, despite policy efforts to reduce discrimination and gender bias. Gender gaps in earnings, however, are a function of hours worked as well as wage rates, and reflect gendered short and long work hour patterns. Within households, how partners exchange time is a crucial driver of hours worked yet this is rarely incorporated into analysis of gender earning gaps. Using a two-stage instrumental variable Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition we model earnings gaps as a function of own and partner hours on and off the job. This enables us to estimate what the gender gap in hours and earnings would look like without a gendered time ‘subsidy’ or ‘borrowing’ in the home. We studied dual-earner households in two countries, Australia and Germany, finding a weekly earnings gap of AUD$536 and €400. This was accompanied by a weekly work hour gap of 12 hours in Australia and 13 in Germany. When we accounted for the influence of partner’s hours (paid or unpaid), work hour gaps reduce to 5.1 hours in Australian households (58% reduction), and to 6.9 hours in German (47% reduction). In effect, women would work 3 to 4 hours more each week, and men’s long hours would reduce, narrowing the gender earnings gaps by 43% in Australia and 25% in Germany, if time ‘subsidies’ in the home were eliminated. Our analysis reveals the economic cost to women long work hour cultures impose. JEL codes: J16, J21, J22, J31

Women's earnings inequality persists, despite policy efforts to reduce discrimination and gender bias. Gender gaps in earnings, however, are a function of hours worked as well as wage rates, and reflect gendered short and long work hour patterns. Within households, how partners exchange time is a crucial driver of hours worked yet this is rarely incorporated into analysis of gender earning gaps. Using a two-stage instrumental variable Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition we model earnings gaps as a function of own and partner hours on and off the job. This enables us to estimate what the gender gap in hours and earnings would look like without a gendered time ‘subsidy’ or ‘borrowing’ in the home. We studied dual-earner households in two countries, Australia and Germany, finding a weekly earnings gap of AUD$536 and €400. This was accompanied by a weekly work hour gap of 12 h in Australia and 13 in Germany. When we accounted for the influence of partner’s hours (paid or unpaid), work hour gaps reduce to 5.1 h in Australian households (58% reduction), and to 6.9 h in German (47% reduction). In effect, women would work 3 to 4 h more each week, and men’s long hours would reduce, narrowing the gender earnings gaps by 43% in Australia and 25% in Germany, if time ‘subsidies’ in the home were eliminated. Our analysis reveals the economic cost to women long work hour cultures impose.

We explore the determinants of the gender gap in income earnings in five Sub-Saharan countries: the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. We show that first, self-employment tends to provide marginally lower average income (with the exception of Ghana and men in Rwanda) and much higher variability in income compared to wage work. Women on average earn less than men both when they are self-employed and in wage employment but also have less volatile earnings. Using the quantile decomposition methods developed in Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2007), we find that the dierences in observable choices and endowments explain the gender gap in earning for the self-employed that earn the least while the gap for the most successful male and female entrepreneurs is largely driven by dierences in returns to observable covariates in the majority of the countries. These results suggest a glass ceiling eect, wherein a large portion of the income gaps between high-earning men and women cannot be explained by observable characteristics. We conclude by looking at the variables that account for a larger portion of the gender gap explained by observable characteristics and find that hours of work and industry explain a higher fraction compared to standard human capital and demographic factors such as age and education.

Abstract: This paper aims to quantify the relationship between occupational gender segregation and gender wage disparities in Pakistan. Non-parametric matching-based decomposition method and a detailed set of individual and labor market characteristics, especially the detailed occupations at a 3-digit level, are used to determine the gender wage gap for males and females in and out of the common support. The results show that even though the inclusion of a detailed set of human capital, labor market characteristics, and occupational segregation by gender helps in explaining most of the gender wage gap, a large proportion of the gender wage gap remained unexplained and can be attributed to gender discrimination. A comparison of rural and urban labor markets shows a high rate of the gender wage gap in rural areas compared to urban areas of the country.

In this article, we examine the relationship between market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China. We analyze change in the gender gap in human capital, political capital, labor-force placement, and family structure; change in the amount of monetary return to these determinants; and the changing significance of these sources of influence. We do so by analyzing two national samples from the 1988 and 1995 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) and city-level data for 1995. We found no longitudinal change nor city-level variation in the gender gap in earnings. Despite this stability, the proportion of the gender gap in earnings attributable to education and occupational segregation increased over time. This change is disproportional, occurring largely only in the most marketized cities. In these highly marketized cities, the significance of market-related mechanisms — education and occupation and industry-placement — has increased, while the contribution of redistribution-related mechanisms — affiliation with the state sector, party membership, and seniority — has decreased. These changes indicate that the Chinese market transition is a nonlinear, cumulative process.

The gig economy is mainly comprised of platform and gig workers and has been characterised by short-term, freelance and flexible nature of employment. It has transformed the traditional standard of employment by offering new opportunities along with challenges in the existing labour market. The gig economy has seen an exponential growth in India mainly due to advancements in technology, a rise in preference for non-traditional work arrangement, the digitalisation of the economy, need for a second and quick source of income due to economic pressure. Gig economy in India encloses a broad range of industries from ride-hailing services and food delivery agents to freelance IT and creative work. The key challenges for the regulation of gig economy in India includes ambiguity in legal status, the lack of collective bargaining power and the absences of a comprehensive social security for platform/ gig workers. The regulation of gig and platform workers is a global issue where the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has recognised the need to protect the gig workers. The ILO’s 2025 agenda focuses on advancing social justice and promoting decent work in the evolving labour market. It aims to address critical areas such as the future of work, social protection, equality and the regulation of emerging work forms like the gig economy. India has taken certain measures to regulate the gig economy by focusing on providing legal recognition and social security to platform and gig workers, the social security code, 2020 and other initiatives at the central level and State level initiatives includes certain steps taken by the State government such as the state of Rajasthan and Kerala. This paper aims to study the pros and cons of the gig economy, whether it is a panacea or pandora’s box for developing nations along with that the paper aims to address the following three questions: 1. Why the Gig Economy is on the rise? 2. Why is there a need to regulate it? 3. What are the recent measures taken to regulate it?

The growth of the "gig" economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore this by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the U.S. We document a roughly 7% gender earnings gap amongst drivers. We completely explain this gap and show that it can be entirely attributed to three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences over where to work (driven largely by where drivers live and, to a lesser extent, safety), and preferences for driving speed. We do not find that men and women are differentially affected by a taste for specific hours, a return to within-week work intensity, or customer discrimination. Our results suggest that there is no reason to expect the "gig" economy to close gender differences. Even in the absence of discrimination and in flexible labor markets, women's relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based differences in preferences and constraints can sustain a gender pay gap.