The Gig Economy's Gender Blind Spot: Why India's Labour Codes Fail to Protect Women Workers

India's digital labour economy is expanding rapidly, creating new earning opportunities while exposing a persistent contradiction in how work is regulated. Women can provide services through digital platforms, accept assignments and generate income without acquiring the legal protections traditionally associated with employment. Recognition as a platform worker does not necessarily guarantee maternity benefits, equal pay, protection against harassment or meaningful collective bargaining.

A study titled "The Future of Work for Women Workers on Digital Labour Platforms in India: A Doctrinal Analysis of the Labour Codes in Light of ILO Convention No. 193, with Bangladesh as Comparator", published in the journal Laws, examines this disconnect. Authors Anubhuti Dungdung and Asha Verma of Gujarat National Law University analyse India's labour reforms alongside Bangladesh's legislation and emerging international standards governing platform employment.

Their findings expose a fundamental weakness in both countries' regulatory approaches. India recognises platform workers through social security provisions without establishing conventional employment status, while Bangladesh extends collective rights without corresponding social insurance. Despite their different approaches, neither framework guarantees statutory maternity benefits to women working outside conventional employment relationships.

The flexibility paradox: Women enter platform work but remain outside employment protections

Digital platforms offer women opportunities to earn income while managing responsibilities that frequently restrict participation in conventional employment. However, the flexibility associated with platform work operates within systems that can determine assignments, working hours, earnings and access to future opportunities through automated decisions.

The scale of India's platform economy makes these arrangements increasingly significant. Its workforce was estimated at 7.7 million in 2020–21 and is projected to reach 23.5 million by 2029–30. Women remain concentrated in beauty services, domestic work and caregiving, where employment patterns differ considerably from conventional full-time jobs.

These differences intersect with substantial inequalities in unpaid household labour. India's 2024 Time Use Survey records women spending approximately 289 minutes daily on unpaid domestic services, compared with 88 minutes for men. Women also spend around 137 minutes on unpaid caregiving, against 75 minutes for men, restricting their ability to maintain uninterrupted employment.

Such conditions complicate the promise of flexible working arrangements. Platforms may offer freedom from fixed schedules while using ratings, acceptance requirements and booking systems that reward sustained availability. Women balancing domestic responsibilities can therefore encounter disadvantages even where platforms apply identical operating rules to all workers.

The researchers identify employment classification as a decisive legal obstacle. India's Code on Social Security defines gig and platform work as arrangements outside traditional employer-employee relationships. Although this creates a distinct legal category, it simultaneously separates platform workers from several protections available to employees under existing legislation.

Bangladesh provides an instructive contrast. Its 2026 reforms extend trade union rights to people working through digital platforms, creating a route towards collective representation. However, the researchers find insufficient grounds to conclude that these workers automatically receive the full range of employment protections available under the country's labour legislation.

The comparison reveals how governments can recognise emerging forms of work while leaving longstanding employment protections substantially unchanged. The legal category through which workers enter a regulatory framework determines which benefits and rights become accessible, regardless of their practical economic dependence on digital platforms.

Maternity protection exposes the deepest gap in gig-worker welfare

Maternity protection provides the clearest illustration of the distance between legislative recognition and enforceable entitlements. India's existing framework provides eligible employees with up to 26 weeks of maternity benefits, but these provisions require an identifiable employer, qualifying service and an employment relationship recognised under the legislation.

Women classified as platform workers do not automatically satisfy these conditions. India's social security legislation permits the government to establish dedicated schemes covering maternity, health and other protections for gig workers. Yet the study found that no maternity scheme had been notified under the relevant provision by its September 2026 assessment date.

An additional difficulty emerges from India's 2026 eligibility rules. Workers must demonstrate engagement for at least 90 days with one aggregator or 120 days across multiple aggregators during the preceding financial year to qualify for platform-worker welfare schemes. Although gender-neutral in wording, these requirements may disadvantage women whose participation is interrupted by caregiving.

Pregnancy makes this arrangement particularly problematic. A woman reducing assignments before childbirth or withdrawing temporarily afterward may accumulate fewer qualifying engagement days. The researchers argue that eligibility conditions designed around regular participation could consequently exclude workers during periods when income protection becomes especially important.

Bangladesh retains a similar structural problem despite taking a different legislative route. Its maternity provisions require an employer relationship and qualifying service, while the amended law provides 120 days of maternity benefit. Women working intermittently across platforms cannot necessarily demonstrate the employment conditions required to access those protections.

The study also identifies Bangladesh's surviving-children restriction as an additional exclusionary condition. Its continued application can disadvantage women with larger families, particularly those experiencing economic vulnerability. Unlike India, Bangladesh lacks an equivalent statutory mechanism specifically authorising a maternity welfare scheme for platform workers without further legislative amendment.

The researchers recommend pooled maternity financing rather than assigning individual liability to a conventional employer. India already possesses statutory authority to establish such arrangements through aggregator contributions. They also propose extending the assessment period for eligibility and treating maternity-related absences as qualifying engagement.

Harassment, unequal pay and algorithms reveal the limits of existing labour laws

Protection against workplace harassment presents another unresolved challenge because platform employment frequently takes place outside conventional workplaces. Women providing cleaning, beauty and care services may work inside private residences, where customers control the immediate working environment while platforms coordinate access to assignments.

India's sexual harassment legislation contains a relatively expansive definition of workplace, including residential premises and locations visited during employment. However, the researchers find uncertainty over whether a digital platform qualifies as the employer responsible for handling complaints involving workers and customers.

The difficulty becomes particularly pronounced for domestic workers. Under the existing framework, certain complaints involving domestic employment are referred to police rather than investigated through the ordinary workplace committee procedure. The study identifies this distinction as a weaker remedy for women whose services are delivered inside customers' homes.

Bangladesh has introduced statutory definitions of harassment and strengthened workplace complaint mechanisms. Nevertheless, its provisions also depend on identifying an establishment responsible for compliance. Where workers perform services in customers' homes, responsibility for investigating complaints against clients remains insufficiently established.

Beyond physical workplaces, digital management creates another form of regulatory exposure. Platforms can influence earnings through customer ratings, automated scheduling, work allocation and account restrictions. The researchers find that neither country's examined legislation establishes comprehensive requirements for platforms to explain adverse automated decisions or provide human review of account deactivation.

These omissions carry particular significance for women whose ability to accept assignments is constrained by safety concerns or household responsibilities. Declining evening work, distant assignments or potentially unsafe services may affect platform ratings and future earning opportunities, even when the underlying restrictions reflect unequal social circumstances.

India's equal-pay protections present a related difficulty. Existing provisions prohibit gender discrimination in remuneration between employees performing comparable work for the same employer, but their application to platform workers classified outside employment remains limited. Consequently, the statutory framework does not establish an equivalent enforceable duty against platforms.

Collective representation offers only a partial counterweight. Indian platform workers may plausibly establish registered unions, but conventional bargaining mechanisms assume an identifiable employer with whom negotiations can occur. Bangladesh's reforms provide a more explicit route towards sector-level bargaining, potentially enabling workers dispersed across multiple households and locations to negotiate collectively.

A new international labour standard cannot resolve every exclusion

The adoption of the International Labour Organization's Convention No. 193 in June 2026 establishes a dedicated international framework for decent work in the platform economy. Its provisions address employment classification, collective bargaining, discrimination, harassment and automated management, including protections against adverse decisions made without adequate explanation or review.

The convention recognises platform workers regardless of their employment classification and requires classification to reflect the realities of how work is performed. It also addresses harassment involving customers and online interactions, extending regulatory attention beyond the conventional workplace arrangements that remain central to many national laws.

However, the researchers identify a significant limitation in its social security provisions. The convention requires platform workers to receive treatment no less favourable than workers holding the same employment classification. Women classified as self-employed may therefore remain outside statutory maternity protection where comparable self-employed workers receive no such entitlement.

ILO Convention No. 183 provides a different benchmark, emphasising maternity protection and financing through social insurance or public funds. Neither India nor Bangladesh had ratified it at the study's assessment date. The researchers argue that meaningful maternity protection requires attention to this separate international framework rather than reliance on platform-specific regulation alone.

Their proposed reforms extend beyond maternity benefits. Both countries could require disclosure of automated management systems, explanations for significant adverse decisions and human review of deactivation. Clear responsibility for customer harassment and more effective collective bargaining arrangements would address additional weaknesses identified in the comparative analysis.

The study's conclusions nevertheless require an important qualification. Its analysis examines legislation rather than observed implementation. It does not establish how many women have lost benefits because of eligibility thresholds, nor does it measure whether proposed reforms would improve outcomes once implemented.

What the comparison establishes is a narrower but consequential finding: digital labour reform can expand formal recognition while preserving exclusions built into conventional employment law. Until maternity protection, grievance procedures and workplace rights operate across different employment arrangements, women may continue providing services through increasingly sophisticated platforms without obtaining the protections available to traditional employees.