India’s gig economy gender gap

India’s gig economy is pictured as a man on a motorcycle.

- TDG NETWORK

That image hides a quieter shift: women are entering platform work in growing numbers, but they are also being sorted into roles that mirror older labor-market hierarchies—care, cleaning, beauty, back-end warehouse work, and home-based digital tasks—while higher-visibility, higher-risk “public space” gigs like ride-hailing and last-mile delivery remain heavily male.

The first obstacle is definitional. Under India’s Code on Social Security, 2020, “gig workers” and “platform workers” are formally recognized as workers outside a traditional employer-employee relationship. That legal recognition matters because it creates the possibility of state-run social security schemes, funded in part through contributions from “aggregators.” But it also reflects the central tension of platform work: companies benefit from treating workers as independent contractors, while workers carry risks that look a lot like employment without protections that look like employment.