Gender and Well-Being
Series Editors: Cristina Borderías & Bernard Harris
Book title:
Gender and intersectional inequalities in the platform economy
Editors: Paula Rodriguez-Modroño, Annarosa Pesole, Ivana Pais
Few recent developments in labour and employment have attracted as much attention as the expansion of digitalisation and platform economies. Platform work can be defined as a type of work where an online platform organise and intermediate platform workers, who provide services, and paying clients. Platform work is a rapidly increasing segment of the EU economy, employing more than 28 million people in 2021; this number is projected to reach 43 million by 2025 (European Parliament, 2023). This book explores the impacts of the platform economy and platform work on socioeconomic inequalities and well-being from a gender and intersectional approach.
The book will examine different key aspects around (i) the new forms of work and intersectional inequalities in platforms, (ii) how the platform economy intervenes in, changes, and reconfigures the organization of different sectors, and (iii) the challenges faced by policymakers and workers’ organizations regarding formalization, remuneration, quality of work, and or social protection of platform work.
Special attention will be devoted to digital platforms in healthcare activities, since it is one of the sectors with highest potential of digitalization and growth of digital platforms, but also of employment creation and formalisation. Care work platforms are digital labour platforms that organise and mediate transactions of labour in domestic or house-related services, including, but not limited to, cleaning/ housekeeping, babysitting, childcare, elderly care and household tasks. The ILO (2021) reports a global eightfold increase in care work via digital platforms in the last decade. Despite their rapid growth, most studies on platforms have focused on male-dominated sectors, such as driving and food delivery, while the healthcare sector is predominantly occupied by women workers, and many of them from foreign countries.
This book includes case studies of different countries from the global North and the global South and will contribute to a better understanding of how digital platforms are inserting themselves into neoliberal transformations in labour markets.
We welcome papers on the following or related topics:
- Impacts of digital platforms on gender and/or intersectional inequalities
- New forms of work in digital platforms
- Reconfiguration of services and industries with platformisation
- Digitalisation of female dominated sectors
- The different roles of the state at different levels (national and supranational)
- Worker organising and power, trade unions and new forms of worker organising
- Impacts on social reproduction and households
- Migration and global care chains
Please send a proposal with a tentative title, a few lines about the paper and name and affiliations of authors before July 31th, 2024. Then, before September 10th, 2024 send the title, abstract (250 words), and a short bio of the authors (including also recent peer-reviewed publications).
If your proposal is approved, we expect it to meet these guidelines:
- No more than 9,000 words (%10 flexibility allowed, excluding references).
- English language
- Include an abstract of 250 words maximum
- Use APA style references
The book will be published in 2025.