Abstract
Work through online labour platforms, which match freelancers and clients located anywhere, gained prominence in Russia and Ukraine over the past decade. Using survey data of online freelancers in Russia and Ukraine, this chapter inquiries into gender specifics of online work. It shows that some important structural gender differences in online work exist in both countries. These differences are primarily manifested by gender segregation into different sectors of activity. These structural gender differences, along with gender differences in online tenure, working hours, and family responsibilities, translate into persisting gender differences in earnings in both countries. Despite this, women seem to be happier with online work than men (in Russia), or at least as happy as men (in Ukraine). The chapter discusses the reasons and potential policy implications of these findings.
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Notes
- 1.
Technically, genuine freelancers in Russian survey are those who opted “I’m a freelancer and it’s my only source of income” answering the question “Do you currently work as a freelancer (that is, as an independent professional working for various clients)? If yes, do you have other sources of income?”.
- 2.
In 2018 the average exchange rate was 62.7 rubles per USD. The authors round it to 60 rubles per USD.
- 3.
- 4.
There is some difference in wording of these questions, however. In Russia, the question was “In what year did you begin working as a freelancer?”, while in Ukraine it was “For how long have you done platform work?”. In other words, the answers in the Russian questionnaire potentially capture also those workers who started freelance activities in the traditional offline economy before they started online freelancing.
- 5.
Across the samples, the differences in working hours are explained as follows. In the Russian sample, only freelancers with online work as the only source of income are included into the analysis. In the Ukrainian sample, the pool of freelancers includes those, for whom online freelance is the only activity, and also those, who combine it with other economic activities.
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Support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) for the second and the third author is gratefully acknowledged.
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Aleksynska, M., Shevchuk, A., Strebkov, D. (2021). Online Platform Work in Russia and Ukraine: Gender Differences in Earnings and Work Satisfaction. In: Karabchuk, T., Kumo, K., Gatskova, K., Skoglund, E. (eds) Gendering Post-Soviet Space. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9358-1_13
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