Flexibility or Precarity: Unveiling Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Indonesia’s Gig Economy
Keywords:
gender disparity gig economy wage adequacy working hoursAbstract
In Indonesia, the gig economy has emerged as a symbol of flexibility in work, yet such flexibility often entails hidden precarities, especially for women. This paper explores gender disparities in two vital labor market outcomes: the likelihood of earning adequate wages and the distribution of working hours. Drawing on 13,085 individual-level observations from the 2024 National Labor Force Survey (SAKERNAS), we apply logistic regression to model wage adequacy and multinomial logit analysis to distinguish between underemployment, adequate employment, and long working hours. The results reveal a consistent gender gap. Women are significantly less likely to obtain adequate wages, even after accounting for age, education, marital status, and job characteristics. Age shows a non-linear pattern, with positive returns in mid-career before declining, while education strongly enhances wage adequacy. Training participation does not significantly improve wage outcomes, and multi-job holding is negatively associated with wage adequacy, suggesting that multiple jobs function more as a coping mechanism than a pathway to better earnings. In terms of working hours, women are disproportionately represented in underemployment, reflecting limited access to sufficient and stable work. Conversely, men are more likely to be overworked, often exceeding the 48-hour threshold. Education again serves as a protective factor, lowering the risk of both underemployment and overwork. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that women’s participation in the gig economy is shaped more by precarity than by genuine flexibility, manifested through wage penalties and unstable working hours. Policy efforts should therefore focus on reducing gender disparities by strengthening labor protections, ensuring minimum wage compliance, and expanding access to portable social security and skill upgrading.
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