Type of Project: Funded project Study Model project Implementation project
Participation through crowdworking Crowdworking and social participation: a contradictory relationship?

New digital technologies are changing work processes, professions, and mainstream lifestyles. Recently, crowdworking has emerged as a new way of organizing digital labor markets.
We investigate this concept in a new project titled “Participation through crowdworking: an analysis of the conditions required to improve participation for groups who are disadvantaged in the labor market.” The study explores the new opportunities that this type of digital work may offer. Existing studies have pointed out a range of risks inherent to this kind of employment. It tends to yield a very limited income, for instance, while lacking adequate labor standards, legal safeguards, and social security. Bearing such insights in mind, we focus on the potential of crowdworking to grant various groups an additional route to gainful work, provided that the necessary political and economic structures are in place.
In this context, we also explore to what extent the flexible and location-independent nature of crowdworking benefits people whose participation in the traditional labor market is limited or impossible. Specifically, we wish to determine to what extent crowdworking can facilitate the participation of people with disabilities or private care duties and people living in isolated, and/or structurally disadvantaged regions. If our research reveals increased opportunities for participation of other groups that are not currently the subject of our study, we will highlight those, too.
To measure and discuss the current quality and labor conditions of crowdworking, we apply widely accepted labor standards (such as the German Trade Union Confederation’s Index Gute Arbeit) to the types of labor market participation discussed here. We further investigate the social conditions required to facilitate successful participation.
Our research focuses on the following questions:
- What opportunities for participation can crowdworking provide to groups whose participation in the labor market is limited?
- What risks and new types of inequality might emerge?
- Of what quality are the emerging types of employment?
- Which specific conditions are required for the groups in question to achieve greater participation in the labor market through crowdworking?
- What socio-political opportunities must be seized to implement these conditions?
During the first stage of our research, we will conduct qualitative interviews with experts in the field. Afterwards, we will carry out qualitative interviews and a large-scale quantitative survey among crowdworkers.
Our objective is to develop proposals for advancing crowdworking in a way that strengthens the inclusion of various social groups and produces beneficial working conditions. We will further develop measures to raise awareness of the need for inclusion of disadvantaged groups among various crowdworking platform operators and contracting firms. To this end, we will establish a network that will allow a wide range of people with a theoretical and practical background in the field: crowdworkers, platform operators, stakeholder organizations, and other interest groups, to discuss the relevant questions.