SCC-IRG Track 1: Empowering and Enhancing Workers Through Building A Community-Centered Gig Economy

零工经济的特点是由独立工人从事短期合同工作，他们的“零工”得到报酬。零工平台的例子包括Uber、Lyft、Postmates、Instacart、UpWork和TaskRabbit。零工经济平台带来了更多的就业机会，降低了进入门槛，提高了工人的灵活性。然而，越来越多的证据表明，零工经济平台上的工人福利和系统性偏见已成为严重的社会问题。例如，大多数零工缺乏经济稳定性，收入效率低，缺乏自主权，许多人由于工作时间长和灵活性有限而出现健康问题。此外，零工经济平台延续了对社会中本已弱势群体的偏见。为了解决这些问题，本项目旨在建立一个以社区为中心的元平台，为零工工人和政策制定者提供决策支持和数据共享，以发展一个更有活力、更健康、更公平的零工经济。该项目包括三项主要研究活动。(1)与零工工人和当地政策制定者合作，了解他们对零工工人福利的担忧、挑战和考虑，以及现有零工经济平台的当前实践、问题和偏见。(2)开发一个数据驱动和以人为中心的决策辅助环境，帮助零工工人在导航和选择零工时做出“明智”决策，并为政策制定者提供宏观层面的视角，以平衡他们不同的目标和约束。(3)部署和评估上述环境是否以及如何解决零工经济中工人福利和系统性偏见的根本问题。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The gig economy is characterized by short-term contract work performed by independent workers who are paid in return for the "gigs" they perform. Example gig platforms include Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, UpWork, and TaskRabbit. Gig economy platforms bring about more job opportunities, lower barriers to entry, and improve worker flexibility. However, growing evidence suggests that worker wellbeing and systematic biases on the gig economy platforms have become significant societal problems. For example most gig workers lack financial stability, have low earning efficiency and lack autonomy, and many have health issues due to long work hours and limited flexibility. Additionally, gig economy platforms perpetuate biases against already vulnerable populations in society. To address these problems, this project aims to build a community-centered, meta-platform to provide decision support and data sharing for gig workers and policymakers, in order to develop a more vibrant, healthy, and equitable gig economy.The project involves three major research activities. (1) Working with gig workers and local policymakers to understand their concerns, challenges, and considerations related to gig worker wellbeing, as well as the current practices, problems, and biases of existing gig economy platforms. (2) Developing a data-driven and human-centered decision-assistance environment to help gig workers make "smart" decisions in navigating and selecting gigs,and provide a macrolevel perspective for policymakers working to balance their diverse set of objectives and constraints. (3) Deploying and evaluating whether and how the above environment addresses the fundamental problems of worker wellbeing and systematic biases in the gig economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.