Uber and The Gender Pay Gap PDF

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Uber and The Gender Pay Gap In this podcast the authors are discussing the gender pay gap between men and women in general, but mostly in relation to the Uber platform. Why they find this important to discuss is because male uber drivers earn 7% more than female drivers as of data used between January, 2015 to March, 2017. How Uber chooses to answer the question is to survey results from just the city of Chicago, due to the vast amount of data. Why Uber is unique is because of its platform which uses a simple formula that accounts for miles driven, the duration of the ride, and potentially, a surge multiplier, for times when the demand is higher than usual. This is a rare case where the formula used to pay the men and women are not discriminate to either gender. This raised questions from the authors, wondering why there is a 7% difference in earnings. Through their research they found three leading causes to the gender pay gap. 20% of contribution to this problem was where uber drivers were and when they were working. Men are targeting more lucrative areas than women and also would work more flexible hours which would allow them to earn more during the night, when the bar areas in the city are in high demand for drivers. The second largest factor was the amount of driver experience that the driver had, contributing for 30% of the gender pay gap. It was discovered that the more trips you had as a driver, the more you learned about how to make more money as a driver. The experience and earnings were the same for men and women who had driven for the same amount of time but the issue was that women were exiting the Uber platform more frequently than men. In six months 63% of men were leaving as opposed to 76% of women leaving Uber. Also, men were doing 50 percent more trips per week than women which gave more earnings and incentive to stay than women. The last and largest contributor was the rate at which trips are being completed, being 50% of the reason why women are earning less. Men drive faster than women which allows them to be completing more trips. It was found that riders actually preferred faster drivers based upon the ratings associated with the faster drivers. In summary of the findings it was found that the main difference between men and women is their productivity and flexibility. Men are being more active on the platform working a larger number of hours at faster speeds and during better times whereas women were not as flexible with their time and therefore being less productive on the platform. This is what has caused the gender pay gap of 7% between men and women in the Uber industry. This research provided concrete findings as of why men are earning 7% more then women. All three individuals interviewed in the podcast made clear points as to what differences between men and women can create this difference in earnings in spite of the formula used to pay the drivers. Although they answered the question with three main reasons they could potentially go deeper in their research. Maybe raise the question like how customers feel about riding with a male or female as their driver or research more about male and female behaviours, why do men drive faster and complete more uber trips in a week. They could have also researched where males and females’ homes were in relation to the more profitable areas, having better access would mean earning more money. Then comparing hotspots of one city to others to see how it impacts a male or females’ income in relation to the city they live in....