Platform work and economic insecurity in Italy

Using representative survey data from Italy, this study investigates the levels and sources of economic security amongst platform workers relative to other labour force participants. Platform workers face greater economic insecurity relative to all other occupation groups, and a rate of economic insecurity that is not significantly different from that of unemployed adults. Higher levels of insecurity are not primarily channelled through lower incomes; instead, higher rates of insecurity persist when accounting for family incomes, suggesting that other dimensions of precarity associated with platform work matter as much as income differences in shaping economic insecurity.