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      Stratified pathways into platform work: Migration trajectories and skills in Berlin’s gig economy

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      Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
      SAGE Publications

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          Abstract

          Platform labour scholars have noted the prevalence of migrant workers in the gig economy. This paper builds on this research but interrogates the broad concept of ‘migrant labour’. The study draws on biographical interviews with platform workers in grocery delivery and domestic work platforms in Berlin, Germany as well as expert interviews with union representatives, migrant organisations and white-collar platform company employees. Through an examination of the mobility strategies of platform workers in this subset of the platform economy, the study reveals a stratification of migrant trajectories and of skills needed to engage in platform work across different types of labour platforms. The study finds that platform companies draw on a workforce that consists of recently arrived young migrants with comparatively high education, language skills and digital literacy. Through close analysis of an understudied section of the gig economy, the paper contributes to the ongoing theorisation of the nexus of migration regimes and platform-mediated labour regimes. The findings complicate the notion of ‘accessibility’ of platform work and call for the inclusion of visa regimes, immigration categories and particular skill sets in future research on platform labour.

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          Most cited references56

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          Platform labor: on the gendered and racialized exploitation of low-income service work in the ‘on-demand’ economy

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            Platform-Capital’s ‘App-etite’ for Control: A Labour Process Analysis of Food-Delivery Work in Australia

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              (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love

              Profound transformations in our digital society have brought many enterprising women to social media platforms—from blogs to YouTube to Instagram—in hopes of channeling their talents into fulfilling careers. This book draws much-needed attention to the gap between the handful who find lucrative careers and the rest, whose “passion projects” amount to free work for corporate brands. The book offers fascinating insights into the work and lives of fashion bloggers, beauty vloggers, and designers. It connects the activities of these women to larger shifts in unpaid and gendered labor, offering a lens through which to understand, anticipate, and critique broader transformations in the creative economy. At a time when social media offers the rousing assurance that anyone can “make it”—and stand out among freelancers, temps, and gig workers—the book asks us all to consider the stakes of not getting paid to do what you love.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
                Environ Plan A
                SAGE Publications
                0308-518X
                1472-3409
                August 28 2023
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Geography, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
                Article
                10.1177/0308518X231191933
                0cd557f5-275b-40fd-ae7e-84b69873f835
                © 2023

                http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license

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