2024 Theses Master's

The Gig Economy: Precarity and Legal Issues on Delivery Workers’ Rights in China

Zheng, Yutong

The 21st century witnessed the process of digitalization, and within it, an emerging platform economy centered around platform-based service industries. In China, the food delivery industry is growing to become a prominent sector in the platform economy.

Building upon platform-based apps, the food delivery industry has provided a vast amount of employment opportunities but at the same time drove the growth of an informal mode of economy, commonly known as “gig work.” The majority of workers involved in this informal economy continue to be China’s rural-urban migrant worker population, generating a new era of issues around China’s long-standing concerns about this population.

This paper examines the legal issues faced by rural-urban migrant workers by looking at 1) the precariousness of their status as migrant workers working in a gig economy, and 2) how the algorithmic control and subcontracting structure of employment procedures in the food delivery industry further intensifies this condition. The lack of formal legal regulations as a response to this problem will also be discussed, particularly concerning China’s national principles as a context.