Decent Work and the Digital Gig Economy: A Developing Country Perspective on Employment Impacts and Standards in Online Outsourcing, Crowdwork, etc

Summary

This paper presents a review of current evidence and ideas relating to the digital gig economy (DGE): contingent (task- or project-based) intangible work delivered digitally and done for money, organised via online outsourcing platforms that are marketplaces bringing together buyers and sellers. Examples of such platforms include Freelancer, Upwork, Amazon Mechanical Turk and Zhubajie/Witmart.

While the paper takes a particular interest in the perspective of workers in developing countries, most of its findings will apply globally, and many will apply to the broader gig / sharing / platform economy.