Last week’s public debate about gig workers—sparked by delivery strikes and renewed scrutiny of 10-minute service models—reinforced the centrality of platform labour in India’s urban economy, but overlooked one critical fact: women remain largely absent from this workforce.
This absence is particularly striking because platform work, in principle, offers a more promising pathway for women’s labour force participation. In theory, platform work provides flexible schedules and task-based earning structures, making it well-suited for women, who need to balance paid work with domestic and caregiving responsibilities. For many women, especially in urban and peri-urban areas, it represents one of the few viable ways to enter or re-enter the workforce. Yet this potential remains unrealised, as structural barriers continue to constrain women’s participation and mobility as well as retention within the platform economy.
Stark gender gap
Gender disaggregated estimates show that women make up only a small fraction of the platform economy Platform-level data by Taskmo reports women’s participation at about 28 per cent among its gig workforce. Overall, female participation across platforms broadly ranges from 10-30 per cent.
This gender gap is not unique to India. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, women make up only about 9 per cent and 18.5 per cent of gig workers, respectively. In contrast, Thailand presents a stronger example of inclusion, with women comprising 52 per cent of platform workers, supported by better digital access and cultural acceptance of women’s paid work.
In India, as in much of South and Southeast Asia, women remain concentrated in a narrow range of sectors—mainly personal services such as beauty and hairdressing, household maintenance, residential care, and parts of the education sector. At the occupational level, they are similarly clustered in roles like beauticians, cleaners, cooks, caregivers, nurses and midwives. This reflects persistent occupational segregation driven by social norms, safety concerns and mobility constraints, which confine women to low-paying roles and limit their participation in higher-earning, mobility-intensive work such as delivery and logistics.
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What is holding women back
Beyond the general challenges faced by gig workers, women’s participation in the platform economy is further restricted by a mix of gender-specific access, social, economic, and technological barriers.
First, limited digital access and low digital literacy remain a foundational constraint. Many women lack independent control over smartphones and internet use, and face challenges in navigating apps and digital systems. Data show that only 56.2 per cent of women aged 15 and above own a mobile phone, and just 37 per cent report being able to perform online banking transactions, reflecting both unequal device ownership and weak confidence in digital use.
Addressing this requires a dual strategy — expand women’s independent digital access through smartphone subsidies, concessional data plans and credit-linked device ownership, while simultaneously investing in community or PPP-based digital-skill hubs that train women in app navigation, e-payments, grievance systems and safe online use, linking training directly to platform onboarding and work participation.
Second, women face greater safety and mobility concerns, particularly during late hours or in unfamiliar locations. More than 50 per cent of women have reportedly experienced sexual harassment during their commute. These risks shape work choices, reduce working hours and contribute to high dropout rates, especially in the absence of robust grievance redressal systems. Safer public infrastructure, combined with real-time tracking, verified users, SOS support and women-friendly shift options, can help mitigate these risks.
Third, algorithmic and operational biases often penalise women who work shorter or irregular hours due to unpaid care responsibilities, resulting in fewer task allocations and lower earnings. Time poverty and childcare burdens reinforce these constraints, contributing to an 8-10 per cent wage gap. Gender-responsive platform design with bias-free, transparent task-allocation systems supported by regular algorithm audits will be critical to ensuring that flexibility does not translate into penalties.
Fourth, asset-ownership barriers also restrict women’s entry into mobility-based platform roles. As of 2020, only 6.3 per cent of driver licences in India were held by women, restricting their access to delivery and transport work. Targeted skilling, women-centric credit support and vehicle-leasing models can help redress these entry barriers.
Stereotyped sectoral concentration remains a challenge. Deep-rooted social norms continue to channel women into beauty and care services and away from higher-earning sectors. Upskilling women to participate across a wider range of platform occupations, particularly in male-dominated sectors, can significantly reduce gender gaps in participation and wages, while strengthening the overall productivity of the platform economy.
Policy responses must, therefore, go beyond formal recognition. Large-scale social-norm change initiatives, accessible childcare, predictable scheduling, nearby work hubs, fair-pay standards and reliable social-security access are essential to expanding women’s occupational choices and improving retention. Without this, the promise of flexibility will remain hollow, and women’s inclusion in the platform economy will remain more illusion than reality.
Cledwyn Fernandez is a faculty and a researcher. Ketaki Gaikwad and Anjhana Ramesh are researchers. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)