The rise of digital platforms has both extended the realm of social reproduction and disrupted its processes. Social reproduction consists of labour in creating and maintaining capitalism’s most valuable commodity: labour power. Social reproductive work, which primarily occurs in the domestic sphere within homes and families as well as in the public sphere such as schools and healthcare services, is now also happening through and mediated by digital platforms.
Indonesian working-class women who work as motorcycle taxi drivers in ride-hailing applications, known as ‘lady ojol’, are performing social reproductive tasks for themselves and their families as well as for their customers, exemplifying double-social reproductive work.
Reproductive Work under Platform Capitalism
In our capitalist-patriarchal society, women are forced to be responsible for social reproduction. It includes all activities that ensure an individual worker can continue to live and be ready to be exploited for capital accumulation. In the domestic sphere of home and family, the reproductive work comprises providing food, cleaning the house, washing clothes, caring for children and their partners and husbands, and more.
This asymmetrical division of labour in social reproduction is closely related to the social construction of femininity in a patriarchal society, which considers such tasks as intuitive and natural for women. Work related to maintenance and care is often seen as rooted in “a woman’s nature”. In reality, there is nothing “natural” about caring for the household, giving birth, or raising children. Yet, our society normalises the idea that wives should take care of the home and family while husbands work outside the house to earn a living.
However, within this ‘normalcy’ and the precarious livelihoods of the working class, working-class women are also participating in the workforce and have to earn money for their families. Therefore, they bear a double workload, earning a living while taking care of their own families. This is generally not experienced by men, who often have no obligation to care for their homes and families. Their ‘productive’ work outside the domestic sphere is frequently used as an excuse to abandon reproductive work that should be shared. Compared to men, working-class women tend to work more hours and can be said to always be working.
This non-stop, 24-hour working experience can be seen in working-class women such as the ‘lady ojol.’ There is no exact number of ‘lady ojol’ in Indonesia, nor a total number of drivers in ride-hailing applications. One figure often quoted comes from motorists’ associations, which state that in 2020, the number reached 4 million in Indonesia.
On the one hand, the “lady ojol” takes care of their households. On the other hand, they earn a living for their families by delivering food to offices, factories, and other workplaces, and taking children to school. The same application also offers services for house cleaning, air conditioning and car repairs. There was even a massage service before it was closed down due to a lack of profitability. Not to mention that drivers in ride-hailing applications are always required to be friendly and care about customers, ensuring the customer’s emotional satisfaction is fulfilled.
Unfortunately, the dual social reproduction work carried out by digital platform workers such as ‘lady ojol’ is often forgotten. When discussing problems faced by drivers in ride-hailing applications, we hear more about inhumane tariffs, operational burdens borne entirely by the driver, or unclear work status, and not about the problem of social reproduction performed by the drivers.
The Experiences of ‘lady ojol’
A ‘lady ojol’ in a city in West Java, Indonesia, shared her experience of doing social reproductive work inside and outside the digital platform with me in May 2024. She admitted that she had never even thought about it before, “Only because you asked, I began to think about it”.
She realised that there was an additional burden when doing reproductive work for customers—when being a ‘lady ojol.’ This is due to the ranking of service users. In platform capitalism, consumer assessments are everything, even determining whether a driver’s work should continue. She shared,
“I also take children to school, and pick them up from school. But the difference is that when we pick up and take our children to school, we don’t have to be judged by other people. Meanwhile, for delivering passengers, we are also assessed by our customers…I must be responsible to their parents or the account owner…If there is even the slightest complaint from them, they will give a negative review… Or worse, we may get suspended.”
In another case, I was told:
“When I prepare food at home, I only hear complaints from my husband, ‘Oh, this is salty.’ But he won’t suspend me…It’s different when we deliver food to other people; even if it spills a little, we will be complained about. ‘The driver is careless!’ The same goes for delivering goods or house cleaning services… But if we clean the house ourselves, there’s no boss. I prepare food when I decide to do it.”
Disposable and Overworked
As ‘lady ojol,’ they conduct social reproduction work amidst pressure from the platform companies and customers. Even though they are labelled as ‘partners,’ the companies determine how much money the driver gets. Then, their performance is determined by how satisfactorily they provide the required service, which is very subjective. They could be suspended for the slightest mistake, meaning zero income. This kind of rating regime means they must do their work with great care, relying on the luck and kindness of customers.
Moreover, under platform capitalism, they tend to be disposable, quickly replaced by other drivers whose services are more satisfactory. This differs from their social reproduction at home. Even though they sometimes receive complaints from their partners, husbands or children, they would not face suspension.
Even though it seems better for women, social reproductive work at home is not paid except for emotional rewards, such as being loved and respected, although that is not always the case. On the other hand, as a ‘lady ojol,’ they are paid at very low rates. The platform companies deduct wages by an average of 20 per cent for each transaction. The low piece-rate wages force them to work longer hours than ordinary workers. A survey states that drivers work between 9 and 16 hours daily.
Disembodied Labour
Workers in the platform economy often manifest as disembodied labour. In this case, workers under platform capitalism, especially those on the front lines of delivery services, are usually only seen as names, or just vehicle plate numbers, on the phone screen. They are not considered to have a biological body that will inevitably tire at some point.
Based on my observations, there are at least two common examples of it. First, many customers tend not to care about the time and situation when using the services of drivers to deliver the food they want, for example, when it rains or in the middle of the night. Second, there are demands that goods sent by drivers must arrive quickly. Questions to drivers, such as “Where are you?” “Have you started?” and “Why is it taking so long?” have become common questions among customers. In food delivery cases, consumers often do not care if there is a long queue in a restaurant.
Unfortunately, the nature of this on-demand job only reinforces this exploitation. Various journalistic reports indicate the strength of this dimension. For example, a report from Project Multatuli explains how drivers continue to force themselves to accept orders because the platforms’ point system determines the bonus they receive. Another report shows how the rating system for drivers impacts the number of orders received–the lower the rating, the harder it is to get other orders.
Not Enough Rest
One of the promises offered by digital platforms to their potential ‘partners’ is flexibility. Drivers are given the power to set their working hours according to daily income targets—something that is impossible for office or factory workers. However, it is clear by now that the flexibility is just an illusion. Piece-wage jobs on the digital platform require these drivers to work continuously because that is the only way to earn more money. Thus, flexibility, as promised, does not seem to apply to most workers in this sector.
Flexibility for these drivers often only means that they do not have fixed hours to start or end work, not the quantity. A survey found that almost half of motorcycle taxi drivers in ride-hailing applications work every day, meaning they never take a day off. Most of them work up to sixteen hours per day. Sixteen hours—that’s two days of work for many workers. Some drivers who depend on this job for their living said to me that many of them even work for two or more platforms so that they can receive orders all the time.
Of course, it’s not that they do not want to work regular hours. As an older male driver said to me in an interview,
“Actually, sometimes I wish I could stop taking orders at 7 pm. But I never turn off the application either. As soon as an order comes in, I accept it. I take orders at midnight too. For the money, it’s very reasonable.”
The term “very reasonable” is the keyword and the reason why drivers are still willing to work long hours. He told me that he does not want to complain about being in that situation because the family’s needs must be met. However, there is a price to be paid. He admitted that he often caught colds and was tired. This is just one example.
There is the potential for other health issues due to sitting and being outside for too long, such as respiratory tract infections or back pain, not to mention the psychological problems that may haunt them, such as stress.
In another interview, a young driver in his 20s said something similar,
“Rest? It’s not a problem, sister. While still young, go.”
Working without time limits tends to be normalised. Some even romanticise it. One news site published a story about how, because of “working from morning till night,” a driver “succeeded in realising his dream of visiting the United States”. The title is misleading because the money from his job was only cover the cost of making a visa, but did not cover the flight tickets or other expenses. Similar news can be easily found.
Reproductive Health
The ‘lady ojol’ is often considered admirable because they help the family economy and are independent. However, they face harassment and distrust from users based on gender bias, “The driver is a woman. Can she ride the motorbike properly?”
Then, and this is relatively rarely discussed, is the neglect of their reproductive health. This work, assumed to be disembodied, ignores the gender dimension as if the needs of women’s bodies are no different from men’s.
In other workplaces, a woman worker needs to ask permission from their workplace not to come to work due to menstruation or childbirth. But, ‘lady ojol’ is different. They do not need to do that. They only have to deactivate their account (“off bid”) and turn it back on when they are ready to work. However, the algorithm does not consider the gender variable. In my interview with another ‘lady ojol’, she said,
“The system at the apps is that… if the account (i.e.her account as a driver) is inactive for a while, it will be a problem. We gave birth, we don’t get paid, but when the account is turned on, it looks like it’s off (because, due to the algorithm, after a period of inactivity, they do not receive as many orders compared to before they inactivated the account). That’s not fair either.”
The problem of “we gave birth; we don’t get paid” experienced by the interviewee is rooted in the ‘partner’ status held by the drivers. Under this status, the platform companies are free from demands to fulfil various workers’ rights, including paying workers’ wages during menstrual or maternity leave.
Eventually, ‘lady ojol’ faces two equally unpleasant choices: to remain ‘active’ amid a problematic situation – there were ‘lady ojol’ who continued to work even though they were heavily pregnant – or to stop working for a while with zero income. The problems ‘lady ojol’ face are increasingly ironic because Indonesia’s two most extensive ride-hailing applications claim they care about gender equality.
In the end, the technology behind ride-hailing applications not only serves the interests of capital owners but also replicates the values of patriarchal society in which it is developed and embedded.
A Crisis of Social Reproduction
Digital platforms have both extended and disrupted the sphere of social reproduction. The expansion can be seen in the further commodification of reproductive labour, where working-class women are compelled to work longer hours than their male counterparts.
On the digital platform, they are subject to an algorithmic control and rating regime that renders them disposable, vulnerable to suspension and loss of income for subjective dissatisfaction from customers. Simultaneously, outside the platform, they continue to bear the burden of unpaid social reproductive labour at home, which is not always compensated by emotional rewards such as affection or respect. The unequal distributions of labour and forms of recognition within the digital platform merely replicate and intensify existing patriarchal structures outside the platform. In this sense, the digital platform reinforces, rather than challenges, the gendered hierarchies of social reproduction.
Moreover, labour within the platform economy is often assumed to be disembodied work. The bodily needs of its frontline workers are rendered invisible. The “flexibility” promised by digital platform companies is then contradicted by the reality of piece-wage arrangements, which compel workers to engage in continuous labour to meet daily income targets, making workers neglect their own needs for social reproduction.
This exposes the unsustainable nature of platform capitalism, which systematically neglects the social reproduction of its workforce. By undermining the health, well-being, and long-term sustainability of labouring bodies, platform capitalism deepens not only exploitation, but also threatens the survival of the working class.
