Who are the crowdworkers?

TLDR

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing platform that distributes tasks to thousands of anonymous workers and is increasingly popular among researchers and developers. The study extends previous research on the demographics and usage behaviors of MTurk workers. The worker population has shifted from a mainly moderate‑income, U.S.

Abstract

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing system in which tasks are distributed to a population of thousands of anonymous workers for completion. This system is increasingly popular with researchers and developers. Here we extend previous studies of the demographics and usage behaviors of MTurk workers. We describe how the worker population has changed over time, shifting from a primarily moderate-income, U.S.-based workforce towards an increasingly international group with a significant population of young, well-educated Indian workers. This change in population points to how workers may treat Turking as a full-time job, which they rely on to make ends meet.