Crowd work in STEM-related fields: A window of opportunity from a gender perspective?

Abstract

After the Global Financial Crisis (2008) many people found new job opportunities on crowd platforms. The COVID-19 crisis reinforced this trend and virtual work is expected to increase. Although the working conditions of individuals engaged on these platforms is an emerging topic, of research, the existing literature tends to overlook the gendered dimension of the gig economy. Following a quantitative approach, based on the statistical analysis of 444 profiles (platform Freelancer.com in Spain and Argentina), we exam-ine the extent to which the gig economy reproduces gender inequalities such as the underrepresentation of women in STEM-related tasks and the gender pay gap.While the findings reveal lower participation of women than men, this gap is not higher in Argentina than in Spain. Moreo-ver, gender variations in hourly wages are not as marked as expected, and such differences disappear once STEM skill levels are controlled for. Asymmetry in individuals' STEM skill level provides a better explanation than gender of the hourly wage differences. This finding opens a window of opportunity to mitigate the classical gender discrimination that women face in technological fields in traditional labor markets. Finally, the paper identifies some issues concerning the methodological bias entailed by the use of an application programming interface in cyber-research, when analyzing gender inequalities.