Gender wage gap in the gig economy: The impact of increased flexibility

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Volume Title

School of Business | Bachelor's thesis

Date

2023

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Taloustiede

Language

en

Pages

23+6

Series

Abstract

This paper analyses the gender wage gap in the gig economy occupations. The objective of this literature review is to examine how the role of the increased flexibility in the gig economy impacts the gender wage gap from a theoretical and empirical perspective. I present two large empirical studies by Cook et al. (2021) and Adams-Prassl et al. (2023) to illustrate the factors contributing to the gender wage gap in the gig economy. I use the inflexibility theory by Goldin (2014) and on-the-job learning mechanism by Cook et al. (2021) to address the role of the reduced hours on the gender wage gap. I discuss the factors that affect women to reduce the working hours more than men and how preferences, values and constraints affect the reduced hours. The existing results imply that the main factors contributing to the gender wage gap in the gig economy are similar to the traditional labour market. The reduced and more discontinuous working hours penalize women even in the presence of the flexible nature of work.

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Thesis advisor

Valmari, Nelli

Keywords

labor economics, labor market, gender wage gap, gig economy

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