Paid domestic services in the platform economy
This project funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and hosted by Migration Mobilities Bristol at the University of Bristol explores how digital platforms shape employment relations in paid domestic work.
Please save the date for the final workshop:
1 october 2023, 10:00-14:00hrs @ London
Workshop with workers and employers active in paid domestic services in the platform economy in collaboration with worker organisations, Professor Bridget Anderson and Melissa Renau Cano (representative of a Coop). More information will follow soon!
The platform economy
Platforms are defined as digital intermediaries that match supply and demand creating digital marketplaces for services. They include Uber, Deliveroo and Care.com. They offer some groups of marginalised workers, such as migrants, racialised minorities and workers with familial obligations (often women), new and flexible opportunities to access work. However, there is growing evidence that platforms contribute to a degradation of employment relations. Platforms do not guarantee minimum wage, income security and challenge worker organisation. The pandemic also highlighted problems associated with occupational health standards. This raises questions not only about how platforms (re)produce existing labour market inequalities related to migration status, ethnicity/race and gender, but also how labour and data mobilities intertwine with state and international labour regulations, prohibition of labour exploitation and migration control.
Digitised domestic work
NeMo will analyse the relationship between platform labour and inequalities that are embedded in the globalised economy but importantly shaped by national and local policy contexts and decisions and actions of stakeholders, including workers and employers. The project focusses on paid domestic work in the platform economy. Domestic work, defined as all tasks conducted in the private household including cleaning, child rearing and caring for the elderly was designated as an essential sector during the Covid19 pandemic. Compared to other sectors of the platform economy, such as ride-hailing (Uber) and delivery (Deliveroo), it has been understudied despite claims that it is the fastest growing sector in platform labour.
Research methods
The project will present a bottom up understanding of domestic labour platforms. Various types of research methods are combined. First, the method of ethnography. Ethnography aims at a detailed understanding of what people do and why they act in a certain way and how they view their own actions and that of others in the specific setting. This can be done through participant observation: the researcher will participate actively in domestic labour platform themselves. Furthermore, in-depth interviews with workers (service providers) and employers (service recipients) as well as platform operators will be conducted. Second, desk and policy review analysis and interviews with stakeholders will be conducted to analyse the relationship between platform labour and inequalities.
Output
The results of this project will be written up in blogs, a policy paper, publications in international and Dutch scientific journals. Presentations on the research findings will be given in (international) academic conferences. At the end of the project stakeholders' workshops will be organised and an informational leaflet with best practices will be published.
