Does the Platform clean the Cleaners? An Exploratory Study on the Platformization of Dirty Jobs in Italy
From Firenze University Press Journal: Cambio
Giovanni Amerigo Giuliani, University of Bologna, Italy
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Rebecca Paraciani, University of Bologna, Italy
There is a well-established and consolidated body of research within the comparative sociological literature dealing with the phenomenon of «dirty jobs» (e.g., Hughes 1951, 1958; Douglas 1966; Dick 2005; Ashforth et al. 2007, 2017; Slutskaya et al. 2016; Deery et al. 2019). With such an expres-sion — first employed by Everett Hughes (1951) — we refer to occupations that are likely to be perceived as disgusting or degrading. People who perform dirty work tend to become stigmatized, as society projects the negative characteristics associated with their occupation on them, depicting them as «dirty workers» (Ashforth, Kreiner 1999).As pointed out by the literature, on the one hand, a job can be dirty because of its content and the kind of tasks it involves; on the other hand, it can be considered dirty because of the kind of social construction and stig-matization that surrounds it, especially when it involves a subordinate relationship with the employer (Sales, San-tana 2003). According to this strand, a job is dirty when there is an intersection of several variables, particularly related to the ethnicity and gender of the worker (Glenn 1992). Domestic work, particularly cleaning activity, is therefore inherently dirty work: a work that, in addition, has strong gender and ethnic connotations in Italy (INPS dataset, 20222).A paradox emerges when considering this specific occupation. Cleanliness is an undisputed value of our soci-ety: it is a sign of decency and morality, productivity and efficiency, health and well-being, while dirt represents what is out of place and threatens the social order (Douglas 2003). Therefore, eliminating dirt is a founding and fundamental act of society. However, the people whose actions make it possible for us to live in a clean space receive little recognition: cleaning is one of the lowest-paid jobs; much like domestic work — non-work par excel-lence — it is considered unproductive. Whether carried out by private companies or by in-house services, cleaning is performed in such a way as to interfere as little as possible with the economic, social, or cultural activities of companies and institutions, i.e., early in the morning, late in the evening, or when it is least disruptive. The same applies to domestic cleaning: the person who does the cleaning often lives in the house so that cleaning does not interfere with family life or has access to the house when the family is away (Alemani 2004). This organization makes cleaning invisible work, just as the people doing the work are invisible to the beneficiaries. Invisibility is ideal for this type of service: beneficiaries demand clean spaces, but they do not want and should not be disturbed by the people and gestures that produce the cleaning (Allen, Pryke 1994).But what happens when the platform contributes to the visibility of dirty workers?This exploratory study investigates what happens to cleaning work with the introduction of online storefronts that make these workers less invisible. We ask whether the platform “cleans up” dirty works or, on the contrary, helps reproduce and indeed exacerbate inequalities already present in the “offline” domestic sector. We address this research puzzle by focusing on the Italian case study, which remains relatively understudied up to the present. More specifically, the work examines one cleaning service online platform (Yoopies.it) operating in four medium/big cities of the Center-Northern regions (Bologna, Florence, Milan, and Rome). In line with other empirical studies (e.g., Van Doorn 2017, 2021; Mateescu, Ticona 2020), we expect that mar-ketplace platforms do not “clean up” dirty jobs; conversely, they are likely to reproduce the historically gendered and racialized nature of domestic work which is present offline. In other words, marketplace platforms do not remove the physical and social stigma associated with cleaning services, which thus remains perceived as dirty jobs. The study is explorative: we do not aim to trace causal mechanisms but to provide a preliminary assessment of whether and how the disadvantages that characterize a specific dirty job — cleaning service — are reproduced online.The research contributes twofold to advancing the literature in the field. First, it puts into a fruitful, mutual dialogue two different bodies of research: the one dealing with dirty jobs on the one hand and the one concerning the platform economy on the other. The former has primarily investigated the evolution of domestic work but paid less attention to how the “dirtiness” of the jobs may be affected by the rise of the platform economy. The latter has focused less on how platforms have reproduced or have not reproduced and intensified such «job dirtiness» and, thus, the multiple stigmas associated with these occupations. Second, the research focuses on a case study, Italy, which is relatively underexplored, thus providing new empir-ical findings.The article is structured in the following way: first, we frame cleaning work within the theoretical framework of the dirty job by providing some data concerning this sector in the offline Italian labor market. In the third sec-tion, we review the state of the art in the field of platforms and cleaning. That is followed by illustrating our main hypotheses and the method employed. In the fifth section, we present the findings of our analysis and interpret them through the theoretical tools provided by the literature. The final section is devoted to the conclusions.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/cambio-15766
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/cambio/article/view/15766
