Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development (ICEMGD 2022), Part Ⅰ
Series Vol. 3 , 21 March 2023
Open
Access | Article
The impact of COVID-19 on the standard of living of Chinese food delivery workers in the gig economy1
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
When the Chinese economy stopped amid the coronavirus pandemic, more than 6 million food delivery workers helped to distribute medicine, daily supplies, and meals becoming the crucial link between individual households and society. In light of the positive media attention and the heightened importance of food delivery workers, the researc her wondered if their living standards have actually been improved during COVID-19. Surveying 227 workers and interviewing 11 workers, the author conducted research on the impact of the pandemic on their compensation, ratings, social status and customer respect. After analyzing both the interview and survey data. This study found that although workers experienced a moderate improvement in their ratings, social status and customer respect, they also suffered a drastic income loss during the pandemic. Furthermore, this research found that the reasons behind those changes were mainly temporary and unique features of the pandemic. As the pandemic failed to make lasting systemic improvements in Chinese food delivery workers’ living standards, further research is needed to address their daily challenges.
Keywords
Covid-19, Gig Workers, Media Impact on Public Perception, Sharing Economy, Chinese Food Delivery Industry
References
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development (ICEMGD 2022), Part Ⅰ
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-915371-15-7
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-915371-16-4
- Published Date
- 21 March 2023
- Series
- Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- ISSN (Print)
- 2754-1169
- ISSN (Online)
- 2754-1177
- DOI
- 10.54254/2754-1169/3/2022747
- Copyright
- © 2023 The Author(s)
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited