Digital Intermediaries in Domestic and Care Work: Business Models and Working Conditions
Chair(s): Francisca Pereyra (Universidad Nacional General Sarmiento, Argentine Republic), Anna Olsen (International Labour Organization)
Contrary to the more widely studied transportation or delivery platforms that seem to reproduce the same organization logic around the world (together with job insecurity and precariousness), digital labour platforms of domestic and care work can adopt very different business models. Studies on the subject are beginning to clearly outline this heterogeneity as it implies very different labour conditions for workers. In a sector which is still struggling worldwide to overcome significant deficits in terms of decent work and where informality prevails, the appearance of new intermediaries with potential for expansion should be carefully assessed.
Some of the more frequently described cases described by literature include:
a) “Uberised” platforms, which contribute to maintaining precarisation and/or may represent an obstacle to policies which seek to improve workers’ situation. They offer short-hours, and very often, occasional services from workers who, despite being subject to intensive algorithmic control, are treated as independent (and are usually informal).;
b) Platforms that exhibit a strong control of workers through algorithmic management but which hire them directly as their own employees;
c) Digital intermediaries that limit their task to connecting the needs of those who require services with those who are willing to provide it (which may or may not provide services to employers in order to facilitate the formalisation of workers);
d) Cooperatives of workers which incorporate algorithmic management or other digital tools to conduct their activities.
This variety has profound implications in terms of the types of labour relationships established with workers and, therefore, in the labour conditions attached. To add more complexity to the picture, it is not infrequent to find different business and employment models, and thus dissimilar labour contracts and working conditions coexisting within the same platform. Undoubtedly, this diversity implies very different experiences, perceptions and demands among the workers involved, as well as important challenges when it comes to the design of regulatory policies aimed at these new forms of digital intermediation in the sector.
This panel, based on case studies which analyse different business models in Europe and Latin America, focuses on how domestic and care workers’ labour situation varies significantly depending on the way in which these intermediaries operate.
Presentations of the Special Session
Peer-to-Peer Precarity: The Role of Multi-Service Platforms in Shaping Wages and Working Conditions in Belgium
Mat Johnson1, Valeria Pulignano2, Claudia Mara2, Milena Franke2
1Manchester University, 2Leuven University
This paper examines the rise of multi-service marketplace platforms in Belgium that provide domestic services such as personal assistance, cooking, cleaning, childcare, and tutoring. Platforms such as Helpper and RingTwice have grown quickly in recent years and promise flexible on-demand services for clients as well as flexible opportunities for workers to earn extra money and contribute to society. But despite their increasingly legitimate position as service providers to elderly and vulnerable clients, much platform work is regulated as part of the ‘collaborative economy’ which offers various tax and social security exemptions, and leaves clients and workers to negotiate tasks, working patterns and hourly rates of pay ‘offline’. This peer-to-peer precarity operates in a legal and social grey zone which, for all of the problems it creates, appears to be preferable to wholly informal or undeclared work, particularly for those with few alternative options.
Digital Platforms for Paid Domestic Care Work in Colombia: The Case of Hogarú
Suelen Castiblanco-Moreno1, Javier Pineda2, Jeanny Posso Quiceno3
1La Salle University, Colombia, 2Universidad de Los Andes, 3Universidad del Valle
This paper explores how digital platforms have changed working conditions and labour relations in domestic and care work in recent years. The study focuses on Hogarú, a digital platform in Colombia. Through a qualitative study involving interviews and focus groups, we analyse Hogarú’s business model, along with the changes in working conditions for domestic workers compared to traditional employment methods. The study highlights two main findings. First, digital platforms can enhance domestic workers’ bargaining power by raising awareness of their rights, professionalizing their work, promoting physical meeting spaces with other workers, providing ongoing training, and ensuring fundamental rights. Second, while digital platforms can shift the traditional labour relationship from one where the domestic worker directly offers care services to one managed by the company, power imbalances and low recognition of this work persist. The paper offers insights into digital labour platforms from the perspective of workers involved.
Digital Platforms in Domestic and Care work in France: Strategies for New Business Models
Lorena Poblete1, Nicole Teke2, Clémence Ledoux3, Pascal Caillaud3
1CONICET-Universidad Nacional de San Martín, 2Nanterres University, 3Université de Nantes
Over the past decade, digital platforms have become increasingly important in the domestic and care work sector. However, they have not developed a single business model, as their forms of intervention vary according to the characteristics of the regulatory framework. In France, digital platforms have to find a way to adapt to a dense regulatory framework. Thus, in order to gain a foothold and market share, digital platforms should develop strategies that enable them to take advantage of the regulations that facilitate their activity and avoid those that act as a barrier to their expansion. This paper seeks to understand how digital platforms adapt to existing standards, circumvent them and sometimes try to change them by intervening directly with public authorities. The aim is to analyse the strategies developed by four digital platforms, two focused on care for elderly (Flavi, OuiHelp) and two focused on home cleaning (Batmaid and Wecasa).
Business Models of Platforms and their Impacts on Domestic and Care Work in Spain
Paula Rodriguez-Modroño1, Angela Medina Calvo2
1Universidad Pablo de Olavide, 2Universidad de Valencia
Platforms are becoming significant digital labour intermediaries in the domestic and care work sector in many countries. In Spain, we find three different business and labour management models of domestic care platforms: marketplace platforms, on-demand platforms, and digital employment agencies. Through a qualitative analysis, our aim is to identify how these platforms are changing the dynamics of home care work. Our results show that each platform model has different outcomes in terms of employment opportunities and arrangements, power dynamics, and working conditions. Moreover, the experiences of platform workers show different expectations and uses of each platform model. Thus, not only do national and sectoral institutional contexts shape the power dynamics between domestic workers and care workers, but platform models also play a key role in employment and working conditions.
