Project INSIGHTS REPORT

Disabled Gig Workers in Canada: Exploring their Experiences and Identifying Interventions to Improve their Safety and Well-being

Quality of Work

The Issue

Although platform apps and gig work predate the pandemic, the number of people that they employ increased sharply as a result of COVID-19-related job loss and the influx of available work that was driven towards gig platforms at that time. The term ‘gig economy’ refers to a short, task-based means of generating income that is different from temporary contracting and business ownership. In the gig world, workers are paid out per task or hourly, and are involved in a variety of work ranging from transportation to graphic design. Gig workers can be based anywhere in the world and often serve international clients.

It’s estimated that gig workers represent roughly 10% of the current workforce in Canada and provide a wide set of services that many have become dependent upon. Gig work does not appear to be disappearing any time soon. However, there are concerns about the working conditions in the gig economy. This remains especially true in the context of gig workers with disabilities, who face a different set of challenges and do not have access to the same employment opportunities as workers without disabilities. People of working age who have a disability face barriers including workplace stigma, hiring practice discrimination, physical and mental impairment, lack of accommodations, long term and/or repetitive strain and sometimes an inability to meet job demands.

It is important that both research and policy remain at the forefront of establishing an understanding of gig work and how to best support people who do gig work moving forward, including understanding how different groups, like people living with disabilities, experience gig work.

What We’re Investigating

This project sought to understand the experiences of people living with disabilities working in the gig economy, specifically the benefits and drawbacks of doing gig work and effective interventions to protect the health and safety of disabled gig workers in Canada.

The research questions guiding the project include:

1. What are the lived experiences of people with disabilities working in the gig economy in Canada? How does working in the gig economy affect the health and well-being of disabled Canadians? What are the differences in lived experience based on generational status, gender, race and/or immigrant status? 
2. What barriers and opportunities exist for people with disabilities in gig work? 
3. What interventions by the government and the private sector protect the health and well-being of disabled gig workers in Canada?

To answer these questions, the project performed a scoping review, surveying literature on gig work and people living with disabilities to identify themes and gaps. Findings from the scoping review informed semi-structured  interviews with people living with disabilities working in the Canadian gig economy.

What We’re Learning

The project interviewed 21 people living with disabilities who were doing gig work. These experiences corroborated many of the themes that emerged from the scoping review, which synthesized findings from 57 articles from 2002-2022. 

Pushed into the gig economy due to a lack of options. Although positive themes emerged from the interviews, on the whole, interviewees had more negative than positive things to say about working in the gig economy. Most felt pushed into gig work due to a lack of employment options, rather than attracted to go into the field. This finding corroborates other research that indicates limited employment choices for many people living with disabilities. Of those that reflected on this, 84% (n=16) felt that they’d been pushed into gig work due to a lack of suitable and accommodating employment. Despite the feeling that many people with disabilities are pushed into gig work, the majority of interviewees in this project said that they preferred gig work, most often citing its flexibility. 

Drawbacks of the gig economy for people living with disabilities. Interviewees expressed dissatisfaction with the absence of protections and benefits available in the gig economy and most felt the work was not financially sustainable due to its unpredictability. This corroborates recent studies on the gig economy that echo the financial instability described by interviewees and the mental and physical health consequences of it. The need for benefits and access to paid leave was also well documented in existing literature, where these drawbacks were reported as even more critical than insufficient income. As mentioned by an interviewee, gig workers with disabilities are often the people who need medical benefits the most, due to managing ongoing health concerns and having little income to cover external disability-related costs themselves. 

Pull factors for people living with disabilities to the gig economy. Interviewees appreciated certain aspects of gig work, including the flexibility,  increased autonomy, flexible working hours, and the ability to leverage their unique skills and strengths. This corroborates other research findings on the benefits of flexibility and autonomy that gig work facilitates and how these freedoms can support health and work-life integration.

Common for people living with disabilities to experience discrimination in gig work. Nearly half of the people living with disabilities that were interviewed for this project (n=10, 48%) said they experience discrimination in the gig economy as a result of their disability. This included instances where ongoing work was discontinued once the client realized the gig worker had a disability; a sense of amazement from clients that high-quality work was completed by a person living with a disability, or statements that insinuate the deliverables were low priority because they were handled by a person living with a disability. Only a few of the studies included in the scoping review mentioned racial discrimination in certain fields of gig work and gender inequity, but none so far have touched on disability-related stigma and discrimination, so more research is needed.

What’s Next

The project partners created videos for knowledge mobilization