This article examines the precarious and flexible nature of gig work, focusing on inDrive drivers in Rabat, Morocco. It explores drivers’ profiles, working conditions, and strategies within a digitized labor market, using theoretical frameworks of precarity by Bresson, Paugam, and Castel. The study highlights intersections of job instability, lack of social protections, and neoliberal labor market restructuring. Using a mixed-methods approach with participant observation and interviews, key findings reveal that inDrive work is often seen as supplementary or transitional income, attracting a diverse range of individuals, including students, the unemployed, and former taxi drivers. The flexibility of working hours, the ability to set their own schedules, choose routes, and define daily income targets, is especially valued by those who consider this activity secondary and not their primary job, and who are not burdened by significant family responsibilities or car loans and other commitments. Otherwise, they are more likely to experience precariousness, such as job instability, lack of social protection, and other challenges. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the socioeconomic and legal contexts of gig work and calls for further research, particularly cross-city and cross-country comparisons, to better understand the global gig economy. Future research could also explore gig platforms’ role during large-scale events, like the 2030 FIFA World Cup, and their impact on worker resilience.

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Navigating Precarity in the Gig Economy: A Study of In-Drive Workers in Rabat, Morocco

  • Fidae El Hassouni,
  • Saadeddine Igamane,
  • Mounir El Bakkouchi

摘要

This article examines the precarious and flexible nature of gig work, focusing on inDrive drivers in Rabat, Morocco. It explores drivers’ profiles, working conditions, and strategies within a digitized labor market, using theoretical frameworks of precarity by Bresson, Paugam, and Castel. The study highlights intersections of job instability, lack of social protections, and neoliberal labor market restructuring. Using a mixed-methods approach with participant observation and interviews, key findings reveal that inDrive work is often seen as supplementary or transitional income, attracting a diverse range of individuals, including students, the unemployed, and former taxi drivers. The flexibility of working hours, the ability to set their own schedules, choose routes, and define daily income targets, is especially valued by those who consider this activity secondary and not their primary job, and who are not burdened by significant family responsibilities or car loans and other commitments. Otherwise, they are more likely to experience precariousness, such as job instability, lack of social protection, and other challenges. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the socioeconomic and legal contexts of gig work and calls for further research, particularly cross-city and cross-country comparisons, to better understand the global gig economy. Future research could also explore gig platforms’ role during large-scale events, like the 2030 FIFA World Cup, and their impact on worker resilience.