Worker demographics and earnings on amazon mechanical turk: An exploratory analysis

• Main Authors: HARA, Kotaro, MILLAND, Kristy, HANRAHAN, Benjamin V., CALLISON-BURCH, Chris, ADAMS, Abigail, SAVAGE, Saiph, BIGHAM, Jeffrey P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Amazon Mechanical Turk; Crowdsourcing; Hourly wage; Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; Computer and Systems Architecture
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4402; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5405/viewcontent/worker_demographics.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Prior research reported that workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) are underpaid, earning about $2/h. But the prior research did not investigate the difference in wage due to worker characteristics (e.g., country of residence). We present the first data-driven analysis on wage gap on AMT. Using work log data and demographic data collected via online survey, we analyse the gap in wage due to different factors. We show that there is indeed wage gap; for example, workers in the U.S. earn $3.01/h while those in India earn $1.41/h on average.