An Investigation of the Relationship between Gig Work and Structural Inequality

Jaylexia Clark, University of Notre Dame

Previous work on the gig economy has demonstrated that gig work is much different than that of work in the formal economy. First, gig work is characterized by the precarious nature of the work as compared to jobs in the formal economy, is typically low wage, and gig workers are not protected by federal employment law while workers in the formal economy are covered (Graham 2018, Devault 2019). Given that most gig work is low wage labor and entry into the gig economy has been connected to stalled re-entry into the formal economy, growth in gig work may lead to an increase in income inequality within the United States. Thus, there is a current gap in the field due to a lack of research that investigates the relationship between gig work and income inequality. Additionally, previous research has demonstrated that racial residential segregation “creates easily identifiable markets for institutions to avoid, target, and exploit” and leads to persistent racial occupational segregation in the formal economy (Faber 2019 and Tesfai 2019). However, studies have yet to investigate whether this affect persists throughout the gig economy as well. Drawing upon a racial capitalism framework we could hypothesize that both racial residential segregation and income inequality would persist as important and impactful structures of inequality that shape platform capitalism (McMillan-Cottom 2020). Thus, I investigate whether economically marginalized and racial segregated areas produce more labor participation in the gig economy. This paper draws upon data from the American Community Survey, the US Non- Employer Statistics dataset, US Census Bureau, and the Community Business Patterns dataset. This paper employs panel data analysis with fixed effects in order to estimate the effect that unemployment rates, racial segregation, and income inequality have on levels of labor participation in the gig economy.

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 Presented in Session 13. Labor Movements and Configurations of Racial Capitalism: Theorizing Race, Class, Gender in historical change