Women in the Platform Economy

Digital platforms are changing how individuals around the world earn a living by working, trading, renting, or engaging in digital marketplaces: platform livelihoods. But platform livelihoods are more than just earning an income. A livelihood encompasses other factors, including growth of the individual, their safety, the support they need and get, and whether they find purpose in their work as they navigate this new way of working enabled by advances in technology.

Together with research partners Centre for Social Policy Studies at the University of Ghana, Qhala Limited, Lagos Business School, and Value for Women, Caribou explored the opportunities and challenges that platform work presents for young women (18–35), how they navigate these, including during and after COVID-19, and how policymakers, governments, platforms, and members of the development community can make platform livelihoods better for them.

This report explores five common themes that arose across this research, applying the Gender at Work Framework to understand the extent to which platform work and sales is empowering for women, including female platform workers and sellers’ understandings of empowerment, their expectations, the trade-offs they make, and how they affect change.

Four additional reports comprise this research:

• “Women and Platform Livelihoods: Lessons from Ghana” by Nana Akua Anyidoho, Akosua Keseboa Darkwah, and Caribou
• “Platform Livelihoods and Young Women’s Economic Empowerment in Nigeria” by Olayinka David-West, Raymond Onuoha, and Caribou
• “Different Shades of Women in Platform Livelihoods: Stories of Resilience” by Qhala Limited and Caribou
• “Gender-forward Business Practices for Digital Platforms: A Supply-side Exploration” by Value for Women and Caribou