Employment status and the on-demand economy: a natural experiment on reclassification

IF 3.2 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Socio-Economic Review Pub Date : 2023-08-22 DOI:10.1093/ser/mwad047

Hannah Johnston, Ozlem Ergun, Juliet Schor, Lidong Chen

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract This article uses data from a natural experiment to address one of the most contentious issues in the on-demand platform economy—whether gig work is compatible with standard employment. We analyze a US-based package delivery platform that shifted a subset of its workers from independent contractors to employees, thereby creating a natural experiment that allowed us to exploit variation over time and across locations. We examine the impact of employment status on work scheduling practices, hours of work and the firm’s ability to match workers’ scheduled hours with the amount of time they were actively engaged in parcel delivery. We find that after the transition to employment, flexibility with respect to how work schedules were determined was maintained, and drivers’ total hours of work increased. We also find that the switch to employee status increased the firm’s ability to match scheduled and actual working time, indicating greater operational efficiency. We conclude, contrary to claims commonly made by platform firms, that employment status can coexist with the platform model.

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就业状况和按需经济:重新分类的自然实验

本文利用自然实验的数据来解决按需平台经济中最具争议的问题之一——零工工作是否与标准就业相兼容。我们分析了一个美国的包裹递送平台，该平台将一部分工人从独立承包商转变为员工，从而创建了一个自然的实验，使我们能够利用不同时间和地点的变化。我们研究了就业状况对工作安排实践的影响，工作时间，以及公司将工人的计划时间与他们积极从事包裹递送的时间相匹配的能力。我们发现，在过渡到就业后，关于如何确定工作时间表的灵活性保持不变，司机的总工作时间增加。我们还发现，转换为员工状态增加了公司匹配计划和实际工作时间的能力，表明更高的运营效率。我们得出结论，与平台公司通常提出的主张相反，就业状况可以与平台模式共存。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Socio-Economic Review Multiple-

CiteScore

6.80

自引率

10.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Originating in the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), Socio-Economic Review (SER) is part of a broader movement in the social sciences for the rediscovery of the socio-political foundations of the economy. Devoted to the advancement of socio-economics, it deals with the analytical, political and moral questions arising at the intersection between economy and society. Articles in SER explore how the economy is or should be governed by social relations, institutional rules, political decisions, and cultural values. They also consider how the economy in turn affects the society of which it is part, for example by breaking up old institutional forms and giving rise to new ones. The domain of the journal is deliberately broadly conceived, so new variations to its general theme may be discovered and editors can learn from the papers that readers submit. To enhance international dialogue, Socio-Economic Review accepts the submission of translated articles that are simultaneously published in a language other than English. In pursuit of its program, SER is eager to promote interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology, economics, political science and moral philosophy, through both empirical and theoretical work. Empirical papers may be qualitative as well as quantitative, and theoretical papers will not be confined to deductive model-building. Papers suggestive of more generalizable insights into the economy as a domain of social action will be preferred over narrowly specialized work. While firmly committed to the highest standards of scholarly excellence, Socio-Economic Review encourages discussion of the practical and ethical dimensions of economic action, with the intention to contribute to both the advancement of social science and the building of a good economy in a good society.