Gig economy shows familiar work disparities

New research looking at Africa’s gig work boom has once again unmasked the prevalence of disadvantages that women face in economic activity. This is contained in a study titled “Gendered inequalities of platform work in Africa: Findings from a multi-country analysis”.

The analysis was conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in collaboration with international partners. Known as platform work, which includes ride-hailing, food delivery and online freelancing, it has been praised as a new avenue for women’s employment in Africa. The inquiry, which spans five African countries, revealed that while men and women share many of the same challenges in the gig economy, women face distinct disadvantages that limit their opportunities and deepen economic insecurity.

The study, which looked at ride-hailing, delivery, professional services and microtasks, found that men and women experience similar issues in platform work: inadequate social protection, lack of employment contracts, reliance on opaque algorithmic management systems, and little or no representation in decision-making. Both genders reported similar struggles with unpredictable income, job insecurity and limited recourse for disputes with platforms.

“Women may be working on the same platforms as men, but the social and economic context in which they work is profoundly different.”

However, gender norms influence the types of platform work women can access, with men dominating sectors such as ride-hailing and delivery. In contrast, women are more concentrated in professional services and microtasking sectors, often paying less and offering fewer hours. This reduced working time is often linked to unpaid care responsibilities and cultural expectations that limit women’s availability for work.

“While digital platforms are marketed as offering women a way to work around other commitments, the reality is that fewer working hours translate into lower incomes and greater dependency on gig work as their primary or only source of earnings,” said Dr Sharon Geeling from UCT’s Department of Information Systems.

Flexibility without security

Furthermore, without the hours to match men’s participation, women were unable to leverage their qualifications into a wage premium, as the study revealed that women in the sample generally had higher levels of formal education than men.

“Women may be working on the same platforms as men, but the social and economic context in which they work is profoundly different. The flexibility of platform work is often overstated for women. Flexibility without security simply shifts the burden onto the worker, and in many cases, that means onto women who are already juggling unpaid care work and limited job options,” commented Pitso Tsibolane, a senior lecturer in UCT’s Department of Information Systems.

The paper concluded with a series of recommendations addressing gender inequalities in platform work. These include:

• designing platform policies that explicitly recognise and address gender-based barriers to participation
• introducing safeguards and reporting mechanisms to protect workers from harassment and discrimination
• offering more flexible and predictable scheduling options that accommodate unpaid care responsibilities without penalising workers through lower earnings
• ensuring equal access to the most lucrative sectors of platform work through targeted outreach and training
• expanding research into women’s lived experiences of gig work in Africa to guide evidence-based policy making.

Read the paper.