IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dia/wpaper/dt202408.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Structural transformation and the platform economy in the labour market:The case of drivers and delivery workers in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • François Roubaud

    (UMR LEDa, DIAL, IRD, CNRS, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL, Paris, France)

  • Mireille Razafindrakoto

    (UMR LEDa, DIAL, IRD, CNRS, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL, Paris, France)

  • João Hallak Neto

    (Brazil)

  • Valéria Pero

    (Instituto de Economia da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - Brazil)

  • André Simões

    (Brazil)

Abstract

For nearly a decade, the Brazilian labour market has suffered from periods of deep crisis marked by the growth of unemployment and informality. In this general context, platform jobs, which emerged around 2016, appear with unequaled dynamism in job creation. However, it is difficult to quantify and qualify this phenomenon to date due to the lack of a suitable measuring instrument in Brazil and on a global scale. The nature of jobs and their quality is largely unknown. Therefore, this study has a dual objective. On the methodological front, it aims to contribute to the debate on the concepts and statistical tools needed for measuring the scale and the characteristics of this new type of job reliably. The empirical work is mainly based on the intensive processing of micro-data from the PNAD Contínua (the Brazilian Labour Force Survey). The changes observed in the various job characteristics over the long term as a result of the analysis provide an assessment of the relevance of the approach. On the analytical front, we propose to draw up a panorama as reliable as possible of platform employment in Brazil in its different dimensions (job structure and workers' characteristics, working conditions and earnings, professional trajectories, contribution to the household economy), focusing on the most “visible” of them: drivers and delivery workers. We show that these platform jobs in the transport sector represent a real opportunity. The vast majority of the jobs created are permanent and contribute significantly to the household economy. They are not just occasional jobs for supplementary income. Nor are they a stepping stone to formal employment. However, the jobs are of low quality: in terms of working conditions, they fall between informal and formal workers but closer to the former. Moreover, it should be stressed that their situation tends to deteriorate over time, becoming increasingly precarious.

Suggested Citation

  • François Roubaud & Mireille Razafindrakoto & João Hallak Neto & Valéria Pero & André Simões, 2024. "Structural transformation and the platform economy in the labour market:The case of drivers and delivery workers in Brazil," Working Papers DT/2024/08, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    • Handle: RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt202408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dial.ird.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-08-DDWs-Structural-transformation-2012-2023_28072024_DT-Final-010824-keywords.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayomikun Idowu & Amany Elbanna, 2022. "Digital Platforms of Work and the Crafting of Career Path: The Crowdworkers’ Perspective," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 441-457, April.
    2. Jan Drahokoupil & Maria Jepsen, 2017. "The digital economy and its implications for labour. 1. The platform economy," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 23(2), pages 103-107, May.
    3. Dalia Gebrial, 2024. "Racial platform capitalism: Empire, migration and the making of Uber in London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1170-1194, June.
    4. Maria Cesira Urzi Brancati & Annarosa Pesole & Enrique Férnandéz-Macías, 2020. "New evidence on platform workers in Europe: Results from the second COLLEEM survey," JRC Research Reports JRC118570, Joint Research Centre.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gabriel López-Martínez & Francisco Eduardo Haz-Gómez & José Eulogio Real Deus, 2023. "Are You Really Your Own Boss? Flexi-Vulnerability and False Consciousness of Autonomy in the Digital Labor Culture of Riders," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, July.
    2. Sam Jones & Ivan Manhique, 2022. "Digital labour platforms as shock absorbers: Evidence from COVID-19," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-108, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Jin, Xing & Lyu, Kangyin, 2024. "The impact of digital economy on emerging employment trends: Insights from the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS)," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Luka Bulian, 2021. "The gig is up: who does gig economy actually benefit?," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 19(1), pages 106-119.
    5. Cirillo, Valeria & Guarascio, Dario & Parolin, Zachary, 2023. "Platform work and economic insecurity in Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 126-138.
    6. Cirillo, Valeria & Guarascio, Dario & Parolin, Zachary, 2021. "Platform Work and Economic Insecurity: Evidence from Italian Survey Data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 821, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Paolo Borghi & Annalisa Murgia & Mathilde Mondon-Navazo & Petr Mezihorak, 2021. "Mind the gap between discourses and practices: Platform workers’ representation in France and Italy," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(4), pages 425-443, December.
    8. Kool, Tamara & Bordon, Giulio & Gassmann, Franziska, 2021. "Access to social protection for platform and other non-standard workers: A literature review," MERIT Working Papers 2021-002, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    9. James Duggan & Michelle O’Sullivan & Maeve O’Sullivan, 2023. "Essential or excluded? Union pressures and state responses to platform work in three liberal market economies," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 29(4), pages 491-505, November.
    10. Paola Tubaro, 2022. "Social networks and resilience in emerging labor markets," Post-Print hal-03850444, HAL.
    11. repec:zna:indecs:v:19:y:2021:i:4:p:106-119 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Virginie Boutueil, 2018. "New Mobility Services," Post-Print hal-01981277, HAL.
    13. Valeria Cirillo & Dario Guarascio & Zachary Parolin, 2021. "Platform Work and Economic Insecurity: Evidence from Representative Italian Survey Data," Working Papers in Public Economics 208, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    14. Purificación López-Igual & Paula Rodríguez-Modroño, 2020. "Who is Teleworking and Where from? Exploring the Main Determinants of Telework in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-15, October.
    15. Maciej Berk{e}sewicz & Dagmara Nikulin & Marcin Szymkowiak & Kamil Wilak, 2021. "The gig economy in Poland: evidence based on mobile big data," Papers 2106.12827, arXiv.org.
    16. Paola Tubaro & Clément Le Ludec & Antonio A. Casilli, 2020. "Counting ‘micro-workers’: societal and methodological challenges around new forms of labour," Post-Print hal-02898905, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Brazil; Digital Platform; Informal Economy; Labour Market; Structural Transformation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J81 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Working Conditions
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt202408. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Loic Le Pezennec (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diallfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.