72.1%: this is the share of women among the most intensive users of an online microworking platform, according to a study carried out in 2018 among users of the Foule Factory site. Sociologists Pauline Barraud de Lagerie, Julien Gros, Luc Sigalo Santos divided workers into four classes based on their time and frequency of connection to this site, from the least active (class 1) to the most active (class 4). Among this class 4, women are therefore over-represented, but this is particularly the case for those who are inactive, unemployed or retired: they represent 43% of the category, compared to 19% of all workers interviewed.
How can we explain this overrepresentation? The researchers review their main results, as part of the scientific mediation project “What do we know about work? ” of Interdisciplinary laboratory for public policy evaluation (Liepp), broadcast in collaboration with Presses de Sciences Po on the site’s Employment channel Lemonde.fr.
THE “click workers” emerged in the mid-2000s, with the phenomenon of “crowdworking” : an ordering company divides missions into a large number of small tasks, carried out quickly and behind their screen by “microworkers”. For a few cents, they carry out surveys or click on images. They are neither independent nor employees, because the financial compensation is presented “not as remuneration but as compensation or compensation”.
By focusing on a platform reserved for French residents, researchers want to understand the interest of this “work in pieces” in a country with strong purchasing power and good social protection. Indeed, users’ earnings are ridiculous, whatever their frequency of connection: two thirds of respondents say they earn less than five euros per month, and only one in ten more than ten euros. Rare people reach fifty euros.
A blurred picture of the situation
If this sum is additional income for a majority of users – 60% of them connect less than once a week – sociologists distinguish “a very minority first line of intensive users, more precarious and with many more women”, for whom the money raised is still an issue. 5% of respondents stay on the site several hours a day: they constitute the “class 4”few in number, but which actually carries out the majority of the missions available.
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