Analyzing Gender Pay Gap in Freelancing Marketplace

TLDR

Diversity and inclusion are increasingly prioritized by organizations, yielding benefits such as higher engagement, improved team dynamics, and better outcomes, and pay and career opportunities are key indicators of these practices; however, freelancing marketplaces are gender‑neutral platforms where gender pay gaps are not expected. The study investigates the gender pay gap among freelancers on a marketplace platform. Analysis of 37,599 freelancers shows a significant gender pay gap, with female freelancers undervaluing themselves compared to male peers, indicating a need for targeted guidance and counseling to address the disparity.

Abstract

Diversity and inclusion are becoming major focus areas for most of the organizations these days. It has shown to bring several positive impacts to organizations such as highly engaged and motivated employees, improved team dynamics, sustainable team structure, and better work outcome. Pay and career opportunity are some of the indicators to assess diversity and inclusion practice. In this paper, we study gender pay gap in freelancing marketplace. Freelancing marketplaces are open to everyone and gender neutral; hence, it is expected that gender pay gap should not be much over these platforms as freelancers can quote or negotiate the price for the jobs as per their wish. However, our study, performed on 37,599 freelancers, reveals a gap in pay between male and female freelancers. Moreover, the study shows that female freelancers undervalue themselves compared to male freelancers having similar profile. Our study suggests that there is a need to address this large scale pay gap issue by guidance and counseling of female freelancers.