Social (in)security and social policy for gig workers in South Asia

Abstract

Over the last decade, digital worker platforms and the digital economy have become integral parts of labour worldwide, including in South Asian countries. Gig workers often experience job insecurity, low wages, long working hours, and harsh working conditions, which make their living conditions precarious and extremely vulnerable. Further, their vulnerabilities often also result from the informal nature of their employment, poor housing conditions, temporary residence status, and unfamiliarity with local frameworks–labour law, traffic rules, and safety and health at work. Despite the growing number of gig workers, prevailing social security and social policy provisions remain inadequate in addressing the emerging challenges they face, thereby perpetuating conditions of informality, marginalisation, vulnerability, and precarity. Therefore, drawing on cases from South Asian countries and employing ‘precarity’ as a theoretical approach, this article seeks to understand the current state of informality and marginalisation of workers in the absence of adequate social security and social policy provisions. Further, the article examines the nature, tactics, and nuances of gig workers’ mobilisation and organisation in the demand for social security and policy in South Asia. The article recommends that the state enact laws to address workers’ vulnerabilities and enable informal-sector workers to lead dignified lives.