The gamble of the gig economy: the accentuated precarity of platform workers from low-income backgrounds in Singapore

• Main Author: Chin, Darryl Wei Chieh
• Other Authors: Md Saidul Islam
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Social sciences::Sociology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168507
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Until recently, the gig economy in neoliberal Singapore has received little attention since its emergence and creeping growth. However, the Covid pandemic and other international events have spotlighted structural gaps in prevailing labour protection standards and employment practices. By reframing neoliberalism as disintermediation and using the theory of conjunctural geographies, this study employs a triangulation of methods to examine three key questions—how the gig economy is sustained in a neoliberal context, what the central dynamics of the gig economy in Singapore are, and what lived realities of gig workers from low-income backgrounds in Singapore are like. The results illustrate how the situated agency of these workers have and continue to struggle amidst inflationary pressures. By understanding the situated agency of these individuals, this study seeks to improve our capacity for a more nuanced discourse on this topic as we move toward a more equitable integration of the gig economy in the Singapore society.