A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk

A growing number of people are working as part of on-line crowd work. Crowd work is often thought to be low wage work. However, we know little about the wage distribution in practice and what causes low/high earnings in this setting. We recorded 2,676 workers performing 3.8 million tasks on Amazon M...

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Main Authors: HARA, Kotaro, ADAMS, Abigail, MILLAND, Kristy, SAVAGE, Saiph, CALLISON-BURCH, Chris, BIGHAM, Jeffrey P.
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Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4209
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5212/viewcontent/Hara_AData_DrivenAnalysisOfWorkersEearningsOnAmazonMechanicalTurk_CHI2018.pdf
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spelling sg-smu-ink.sis_research-52122018-12-27T09:44:00Z A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk HARA, Kotaro ADAMS, Abigail MILLAND, Kristy SAVAGE, Saiph CALLISON-BURCH, Chris BIGHAM, Jeffrey P. A growing number of people are working as part of on-line crowd work. Crowd work is often thought to be low wage work. However, we know little about the wage distribution in practice and what causes low/high earnings in this setting. We recorded 2,676 workers performing 3.8 million tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our task-level analysis revealed that workers earned a median hourly wage of only ~$2/h, and only 4% earned more than $7.25/h. While the average requester pays more than $11/h, lower-paying requesters post much more work. Our wage calculations are influenced by how unpaid work is accounted for, e.g., time spent searching for tasks, working on tasks that are rejected, and working on tasks that are ultimately not submitted. We further explore the characteristics of tasks and working patterns that yield higher hourly wages. Our analysis informs platform design and worker tools to create a more positive future for crowd work. 2018-04-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4209 info:doi/10.1145/3173574.3174023 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5212/viewcontent/Hara_AData_DrivenAnalysisOfWorkersEearningsOnAmazonMechanicalTurk_CHI2018.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Crowdsourcing Amazon Mechanical Turk Hourly wage Databases and Information Systems Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Crowdsourcing
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Hourly wage
Databases and Information Systems
Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
spellingShingle Crowdsourcing
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Hourly wage
Databases and Information Systems
Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
HARA, Kotaro
ADAMS, Abigail
MILLAND, Kristy
SAVAGE, Saiph
CALLISON-BURCH, Chris
BIGHAM, Jeffrey P.
A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
description A growing number of people are working as part of on-line crowd work. Crowd work is often thought to be low wage work. However, we know little about the wage distribution in practice and what causes low/high earnings in this setting. We recorded 2,676 workers performing 3.8 million tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our task-level analysis revealed that workers earned a median hourly wage of only ~$2/h, and only 4% earned more than $7.25/h. While the average requester pays more than $11/h, lower-paying requesters post much more work. Our wage calculations are influenced by how unpaid work is accounted for, e.g., time spent searching for tasks, working on tasks that are rejected, and working on tasks that are ultimately not submitted. We further explore the characteristics of tasks and working patterns that yield higher hourly wages. Our analysis informs platform design and worker tools to create a more positive future for crowd work.
format text
author HARA, Kotaro
ADAMS, Abigail
MILLAND, Kristy
SAVAGE, Saiph
CALLISON-BURCH, Chris
BIGHAM, Jeffrey P.
author_facet HARA, Kotaro
ADAMS, Abigail
MILLAND, Kristy
SAVAGE, Saiph
CALLISON-BURCH, Chris
BIGHAM, Jeffrey P.
author_sort HARA, Kotaro
title A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
title_short A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
title_full A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
title_fullStr A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
title_full_unstemmed A data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk
title_sort data-driven analysis of workers' earnings on amazon mechanical turk
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2018
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4209
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5212/viewcontent/Hara_AData_DrivenAnalysisOfWorkersEearningsOnAmazonMechanicalTurk_CHI2018.pdf
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