Gender Pay Gap in the Gig Economy

Many gig economy employers seek to encourage women workers to engage with their platforms by extolling ‘flexibility’ as a virtue of this form of employment. However, there are suggestions in existing studies that the price of this claimed flexibility is a widening gender pay gap for women gig economy workers. This chapter examines the question whether gig economy employers in the United Kingdom are fully complying with gender pay gap regulation and whether full compliance would narrow existing gender pay gaps. The chapter uses publicly available quantitative data from existing studies and gig economy employers to explore the extent to which gig economy workers’ pay rates are included in gender pay gap reports and whether wider inclusion would reduce the existing inequalities between men and women gig economy workers. This chapter suggests that most gig economy employers are not fully complying with gender pay gap regulations, but there are indications that full compliance may result in the narrowing of gender pay gaps. However, this is unlikely to be achieved without better understanding by employers that gig platform workers should be included when reporting gender pay gap data.