When Home Affects Pay: An Analysis of the Gender Pay Gap Among Crowdworkers

Debates on the gender pay gap have often focused on discrimination by employers, whether explicit or implicit, and the subsequent implications for men and women’s pay in the workplace. We use data from an online crowdworking platform, where workers’ sex is unknown to the employer, to assess whether there is a gender pay gap among crowdworkers. Despite employers not knowing the gender of the workers, the data nonetheless reveal a gender pay gap, with women earning on average 82% of what men earned. Nevertheless, further analysis of the data reveal that the earnings gap between men and women can largely be explained by the individual characteristics of the worker (crowdworking experience and educational level) and women’s domestic responsibilities. Thus even in the absence of employer discrimination, domestic responsibilities that are overwhelmingly shouldered by women affect how they carry out their work and thus what they can earn. This finding points to a need to institute policies that address the sexual division of labour in the household, such as parental leave policies, as well as the public provision of childcare and elder care services to ease the burden of individual care responsibilities. In addition, crowdwork is currently not regulated by labour law which is affecting the overall level of earnings and working conditions of crowdworkers.