International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 13 Issue: 06 | Jun 2026
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
www.irjet.net
"Modelling the Rise: A Quadratic Analysis of Gig Worker Growth and Economic Impact in India and the USA” -Vasundhara Goyal --------------------------------------------------------------------***---------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract: The Indian labour market has seen significant changes over the past decade or so, and the gig economy has
certainly been no small contributor to that. The proliferation of digital platforms, coupled with the penetration of cheaper internet and smartphones into semi-urban areas, has ensured that a broad cross-section of the workforce has been able to leverage app-based jobs as a means of livelihood. The likes of Uber, Ola, Swiggy, and Zomato are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the gig economy. However, it is also a part of a larger movement than merely food delivery or taxi services. The objective of this paper is to explore how the advent of gig-based jobs has impacted workers across various educational and skill levels. The research is based on secondary research, which includes academic research, government labour reports, and industry data. The findings indicate a mixed bag. For workers without formal educational qualifications, there has been an opening into the economy that was previously unimaginable. For workers with educational qualifications, there has been a take-up of gig jobs for various reasons. For skilled workers, there has been a leveraging of freelance platforms to reach a much larger clientele. That said, the gig economy has not been straightforwardly beneficial. Income volatility, the absence of social protection, and the structural insecurity of contractor-based work are recurring concerns in the literature. This paper argues that policy frameworks in India have not kept pace with the speed of this transformation, and that without deliberate intervention, the growth of gig work risks deepening existing inequalities rather than resolving them.
1. INTRODUCTION The nature of work in India is changing. Not in a revolutionary fashion, but incrementally and in a manner that is no longer possible to ignore. If you walk through any medium-sized Indian city, you can’t help but spot the signs: delivery riders zipping through the streets on their scooters, cab drivers checking their phones for their next pickup, freelancers sipping coffee in a café and typing away on their laptops. And much of this is happening through digital platforms. This phenomenon is now referred to as the gig economy. In the Indian context, the gig economy is a short-term, task-based system of employment through digital platforms. It is not a traditional system of employment and lacks the benefits of a permanent contract, a fixed wage rate, and employerprovided benefits. Instead, workers are categorized as independent contractors and are hence free to choose their schedule of work but bear the entire burden of risk on their individual shoulders. The emergence of the gig economy in India is a result of a specific set of circumstances that have allowed platform companies to take off and scale as fast as they have. And scale, they have. What is less straightforward is how this growth has affected the people doing the work. The gig economy has not landed the same way across the workforce. For workers without much formal education, it has opened up jobs that were previously inaccessible. For graduates struggling to find work aligned with their qualifications, gig platforms have become a fallback. For professionals with in-demand skills, they have sometimes become a deliberate career choice. These are meaningfully different experiences, and conflating them leads to oversimplified conclusions both overly optimistic and overly pessimistic ones.
2.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GIG WORK
Gig work isn’t a single concept, but it encompasses a broad spectrum of activities, ranging from driving, delivery, to writing code, or even financial consulting, and the experience of gig work varies greatly depending on the side of the spectrum the worker is on. The common factor that these forms of gig work have is a structural one: a gig worker is contracted to do something, like deliver something, write code, or create a logo, and the relationship ends once the job is done. The most commonly touted advantage of gig work is the flexibility it offers, and it does, to a large extent. The worker gets to choose their hours, work multiple platforms at a time, and has no fixed schedule to follow. This is a great advantage for
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