Social Protection in India’s Platform Economy

Discussions about social security in the platform economy often end up discussing the legal status of workers. The underlying reason is that social security in the Global North is usually heavily tied to employment. What is sometimes forgotten is that in many parts of the world, and mainly in the Global South, this is not the case. Take India, where 78 per cent of the labour market is in the informal sector. How do you organise social securities when there is no dominant form of contract to attach them to? This is the question at the heart of the report ‘The social protection measures implemented by platform businesses across India’, which was published by India's OMI Foundation (a policy research and social innovation think tank operating at the intersection of mobility innovation, governance, and public good). During my stay, I interacted with Prakash Gupta, Lead, Platform Economy and Future of Work, and Apoorv Kulkarni, Head of Research at the Foundation's Centre for Inclusive Mobility, for The Gig Work Podcast by the WageIndicator Foundation.