TY - GEN
T1 - Flexibility, Occupation and Gender
T2 - 17th International Conference on Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future, iConference 2022
AU - Munoz, Isabel
AU - Dunn, Michael
AU - Sawyer, Steve
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. 1665386, 2121624, 2121638. This research is also supported, in part, by grants from Syracuse University?s office of the Vice President of Research and SOURCE. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations supporting our work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - We report findings and discuss implications from a panel study of 68 U.S.-based online freelancers. These findings emerge from analysis of two rounds of data collection: The first round straddled the arrival of COVID in 2020 and the ensuing pandemic-inspired economic downturn. The second round, from early 2021, provides insight into how online work changed in the following months. We see online freelancing as a window into one future of work, one where the market, not the organization, is the primary structure of the worker-employer interaction, mediated by digital platforms and relying on both algorithms and interaction between parties. Our purposive sampling framework, multiple sources of data, and longitudinal design provides for both empirical and conceptual insights into the occupational differences and arrangements of freelance workers. Findings make clear: 1) these workers value job flexibility even as workers experience diminishing flexibility; 2) occupation mediates worker’s experiences; and 3) gender differences impact the outcomes of this form of work. These findings also highlight the precarity of online freelance work, raising questions about both online freelancing, and market-based labor structures more generally, as a sustainable source of work or viable career path.
AB - We report findings and discuss implications from a panel study of 68 U.S.-based online freelancers. These findings emerge from analysis of two rounds of data collection: The first round straddled the arrival of COVID in 2020 and the ensuing pandemic-inspired economic downturn. The second round, from early 2021, provides insight into how online work changed in the following months. We see online freelancing as a window into one future of work, one where the market, not the organization, is the primary structure of the worker-employer interaction, mediated by digital platforms and relying on both algorithms and interaction between parties. Our purposive sampling framework, multiple sources of data, and longitudinal design provides for both empirical and conceptual insights into the occupational differences and arrangements of freelance workers. Findings make clear: 1) these workers value job flexibility even as workers experience diminishing flexibility; 2) occupation mediates worker’s experiences; and 3) gender differences impact the outcomes of this form of work. These findings also highlight the precarity of online freelance work, raising questions about both online freelancing, and market-based labor structures more generally, as a sustainable source of work or viable career path.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Freelance work
KW - Gender
KW - Knowledge work
KW - Platform work
KW - Precarity
KW - Upwork
KW - Work flexibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126182999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85126182999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-96957-8_27
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-96957-8_27
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85126182999
SN - 9783030969561
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 311
EP - 318
BT - Information for a Better World
A2 - Smits, Malte
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Y2 - 28 February 2022 through 4 March 2022
ER -