Employment status and the on-demand economy
A Natural Experiment on Reclassification
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4237656 |
|---|---|
| Authors | H Johnston (0000-0001-5811-165X, York University), Ozlem Ergun (0000-0002-3420-3338, Northeastern University), Juliet B Schor (0000-0001-9635-1232, Boston College), Lidong Chen (0000-0002-9683-037X, Northeastern University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 169-194 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwad047 |
| OpenAlex | W4386095555 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 34 |
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
Business · Computer security · Economics · Exploit · Flexibility (engineering) · Industrial organization · Labour economics · Management · Natural experiment · Operations management · Scheduling (production processes) · Work (physics) · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Engineering · Sharing Economy and Platforms · Transportation and Mobility Innovations
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| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |