UC Irvine

This dissertation examines the gender dynamics of platform work in India through a mixed-methods and interdisciplinary study of women gig workers, platform managers, and union organizers in the beauty sector of the platform economy in Mumbai. It employs a historical approach to platform work, charting the genealogy of women’s work in Mumbai (1750-present) to show how women’s productive and reproductive labor have been co-opted by capital and technology in each work era, and arguing that platformization constitutes a distinct work paradigm with gendered implications. The main empirical chapters consider the access, experience, and organization of work in beauty platforms through the experiences of women gig workers. First, I show that access to platform work is not a singular point of entry for women, but a dynamic and shifting process that resembles an algorithmic maze with no clear end point. Then, examining women’s experiences of gig work, I show how digital platforms maintain the gender, class, caste, and religious social dynamics that underlie beauty work, even as they transform the work experience by gamifying risk, feminizing work, incentivizing competition, alienating workers, and eroding community ties. This is the new structure of work, and workers are able to survive in it by creating informal tactics and strategies that rely greatly on mutual aid, word-of-mouth, storytelling, and community support. Finally, I show how the organizational hierarchy of beauty platforms is shaped by top-level beliefs about platforms bringing a paradigm shift for labor, which explains the way platforms construct and structure gig work. I also identify differences in female and male managers’ managerial styles with gig workers and analyze why female managers tend to be more punitive to female gig workers. I apply social reproduction theory to make sense of these findings as a whole and chart a path for the future.