Date: November 19, 2021
Contact: Geoff Vetter (916) 634-9051
[email protected]

ICYMI: “Women turn to app-based delivery platforms for work flexibility”

Sacramento, CA – A featured story on Good Morning America highlighted how women across the country are turning to app-based delivery in place of traditional employment because it offers the independence and flexibility to work on their own schedule, while offering higher earnings than many other part-time jobs.

Using data from app-based delivery platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Instacart, the segment featured the increasing number of women earning through these platforms. 3.5 million moms of school-age children have left active work, shifting into paid or unpaid leave, losing their job, or exiting the labor market altogether since the start of the pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

From the Good Morning America segment:

• “While home and unemployed, Moore, a single mom who had at the time recently separated from her husband, signed up to work with Instacart, a grocery delivery service. Moore says she is now making nearly five times what she did in her school district job. And since she can set her own schedule, she does not have to put her children in daycare. ‘If I was working in an office, corporate-style job, I would be paying for daycare and I wouldn’t have been able to afford it,’ she said. ‘Now I’m home every night with my daughters. I’m able to take them to sports and be home with them for homework. I can take off if my kids are sick.’”
• “‘Women are still in a lot of cases predominantly responsible for a lot of care in the home and in families with children,’ said Isabel Soto, director of labor market policy at the American Action Forum, a policy institute. ‘The gig economy allows you to make your own hours, set your own rates of pay and own your work in a way that the traditional work structure doesn’t allow you to do, so it makes sense that it’s attractive to women.’”
• “Jackie Poole, 50, of Colorado, has for the past three years worked a full-time job and also delivered for DoorDash in order to help cover the costs of caring for her 15- and 12-year-old sons. ‘I get aggravated sometimes that I have to work a second job to make extra income,’ said Poole. ‘But on the other hand, I am so thankful and grateful to work where you don’t have to report to anybody, you can work [the job] on your terms and it can accommodate you.’”
• “At Uber, the number of women who earn on the app has increased nearly 80% since the beginning of the year, while the number of men increased by about 40%. On Uber Eats, more than 40% of delivery drivers in the U.S. are female, and that share is growing.”
• “At Instacart, nearly 70% of its shoppers identify as women, and nearly half say they have children living at home”
• “DoorDash says 58% of delivery workers on its platform are female and that the flexibility to design their own schedule is a top reason they choose DoorDash.”

About Protect App-Based Drivers & Services (PADS) Coalition

The Protect App-Based Drivers & Services (PADS) coalition, formerly the Yes on Prop 22 coalition, is continuing to engage to ensure the will of California voters is upheld; to protect access to independent, app-based jobs; and to preserve the availability, affordability and reliability of on-demand app-based rideshare and delivery services that are essential to Californians and our economy.

Proposition 22 was supported by 59% of California voters, 120,000 drivers, and a diverse coalition of more than 140 groups including social justice, senior, community, business, veterans and many others.