Sustaining Livelihoods in the Gig Economy: A Case Study of Paid Domestic Workers and Their Crisis of Social Reproduction in India

This study seeks to comprehend how the daily working
lives and livelihoods of gig workers are influenced by
conditions of 'home,' defined as the locus of SR activities,
and how the vagaries of gig work shape social relations at
home. The study focuses on a paid domestic worker (PDW)
gig platform because women make up the majority of the
self-employed workforce in this sector (NCEUS, 2007; Jha,
2016), and among PDWs (CIS, 2021). The study will
consider the increased pressures on SR of PDWs in a
platform economy, as well as their diverse coping
strategies to sustain families and regenerative processes.
In addition, the study investigates the role of the state in
the reproduction of labour power and social relations in a
deregulated Indian economy. This study thus investigates
gig work from a female perspective and from the global
South, supplementing existing literature that is typically
global North and male-centric. The study intends to conduct
a comparative case study across two cities in India,
Mumbai and Kochi, which have higher and lower levels of
liberalisation, respectively.