The gig economy from the freelancer’s perspective: The risk of precarianization

Own research: questionnaire and replies

No	Question	Reply
1	Have you experienced fluctuations in your income as a freelancer due to the nature of gig work?	[ ] Yes: 80%
		[ ] No: 20%
2	Do you have a stable source of income outside of freelancing?	[ ] Yes: 35%
		[ ] No: 65%
3	Have you ever felt financially vulnerable as a freelancer?	[ ] Yes: 65%
		[ ] No: 35%
4	Have you faced difficulties obtaining benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, or paid time off as a freelancer?	[ ] Yes: 70%
		[ ] No: 30%
5	Do you think the gig economy poses a risk of precarianization for freelancers, leading to financial instability and insecurity?	[ ] Strongly agree: 70%
		[ ] Agree: 10%
		[ ] Neutral: 5%
		[ ] Disagree: 10%
		[ ] Strongly disagree: 5%
6	Have you ever had to take on multiple gigs simultaneously to make ends meet?	[ ] Yes: 85%
		[ ] No: 15%
7	How satisfied are you with your current freelance lifestyle in terms of financial stability and job security?	[ ] Very dissatisfied: 15%
		[ ] Dissatisfied: 23%
		[ ] Neutral: 15%
		[ ] Satisfied: 22%
		[ ] Very satisfied: 25%

Replies to questions: correlation with the respondents’ age and experience

	Correlation with:		Coefficient of determination R2 with:
Replies to questions	Age	Experience (in years)	Age	Experience (in years)
Have you experienced fluctuations in your income as a freelancer due to the nature of gig work?	0,45	0,7	0,20	0,49
Do you have a stable source of income outside of freelancing?	0,35	0,38	0,12	0,14
Have you ever felt financially vulnerable as a freelancer?	0,47	0,59	0,22	0,35
Have you faced difficulties obtaining benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, or paid time off as a freelancer?	0,72	0,78	0,52	0,61
Do you think the gig economy poses a risk of precarianization for freelancers, leading to financial instability and insecurity?	0,58	0,61	0,34	0,37
Have you ever had to take on multiple gigs simultaneously to make ends meet?	0,19	0,17	0,04	0,03
How satisfied are you with your current freelance lifestyle in terms of financial stability and job security?	0,41	0,58	0,17	0,34

Gig economy: definitions

Author/Authors	Definition
Ćwiek et al. (2021)	One of the new forms of work alongside employee sharing, interim management, or collaborative employment.
Broughton et al. (2018)	Alternative to traditional solutions for exchanging services between clients and contractors.
Ostoj (2020)	Collaboration model characterized by irregular earnings. This irregularity results from the demand for services offered by independent contractors.
Gasz (2020)	Collaboration method, which, due to its systemic flexibility, is adapted to the requirements of modern market economy.
Lepanjuuri, Wishart, Cornick (2018)	Exchange of work for compensation between independent contractors and contracting entities.
Instrate and Harris (2017)	Cooperation method in the market where digital intermediary platforms play a dominant role.
Zakrzewska (2022)	Short-term engagement of independent contractors, to be considered on a global scale.
Chen, Liu, Wang (2020)	Collaboration mode characterized by incidental nature of collaboration, dispersion on the client side, and usually a lack of connection between individual tasks.
Ostoj (2013)	A way to bypass limitations arising from labor law regulations.
Miller (2016)	Collaboration model where gig workers perform one-time, short-term tasks in exchange for compensation negotiated with the client.
Aloisi (2018)	Collaboration model where independent contractors are required to be self-reliant, including in organizing their own work.
Dokko, Mumford, Schanzenbach (2015); Manyika, Lund, Bughin, Robinson, Mischke, Mahajan (2016)	An alternative to traditional employment.
Woodcock (2019)	Part of new social order based on modern technologies and sustainable development.
Roy, Shrivastava (2020)	Work performed „on demand” as an alternative to the traditional employment model, where the flow of work is continuous.

Replies to questions: Pearson correlation

Question No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	-	0.47	0.75	0.84	0.9	0.85	0.65
2	0.47	-	0.51	0.32	0.49	0.74	0.52
3	0.75	0.51	-	0.89	0.85	0.76	0.55
4	0.84	0.32	0.89	-	0.89	0.78	0.59
5	0.9	0.49	0.85	0.89	-	0.74	0.5
6	0.85	0.74	0.76	0.78	0.74	-	0.6
7	0.65	0.52	0.55	0.59	0.5	0.6	-

Basic information regarding the research sample

Feature	Value
Age
Dominant	29
Average	28.49
Maximum	38
Minimum	18
Variance	29.58
Standard deviation	5.44
Variance after skipping 10% extreme values	12.51
Standard deviation after skipping 10% extreme values	3.54
Experience (in years)
Dominant	8
Average	7.64
Maximum	15
Minimum	1
Variance	18.67
Standard deviation	4.32
Variance after skipping 10% extreme values	10.48
Standard deviation after skipping 10% extreme values	3.24

Replies to questions: coefficient of determination R2

Question No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	-	0.22	0.56	0.71	0.81	0.72	0.42
2	0.22	-	0.26	0.1	0.24	0.55	0.27
3	0.56	0.26	-	0.79	0.72	0.58	0.3
4	0.71	0.1	0.79	-	0.79	0.61	0.35
5	0.81	0.24	0.72	0.79	-	0.55	0.25
6	0.72	0.55	0.58	0.61	0.55	-	0.36
7	0.42	0.27	0.3	0.35	0.25	0.36	-