Women’s paid and unpaid work on digital platforms in Mexico City

Abstract

In this paper we analyze some of the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of workers operating on digital platforms in Mexico City. Likewise, we show differences that exist between delivery women themselves, comparing the characteristics of those who have financial dependents and those who do not. The information comes from a broader study that we carried out in Mexico City with a mixed, quantitative and qualitative approach. The quantitative one consisted of a probabilistic survey that was applied to 1008 delivery people, and the qualitative one was based on three focus groups and 60 semi-structured interviews with all stakeholders involved in the delivery system. For the analysis we consider the variable of economic dependents, the age of the people, the people who study and work; the level of schooling attained; the reasons why they stopped studying; the income they receive per week; the differentiation in the use of transport and accidents; if they have suffered accidents at work and hospitalization, as well as violence and sexual harassment, and if they are accompanied by someone to make deliveries. The main contribution of this work is that it shows gender inequalities that occur between men and women, but also differences that exist between women themselves, who decided to be mothers, who have financial dependents and who divide their time between paid and unpaid work.