Dependence and Precarity in the Sharing Economy: A Lecture by Juliet Schor

The "sharing" economy has generated both excitement and enthusiasm. In this talk I will discuss research from a multi-year study on how earners on sharing platforms (such as Airbnb, Uber and TaskRabbit) experience their work. Our findings suggest that rather than the factors identified by most observers (eg, technology and legal classification)the main determinant of outcomes is providers' dependence on platform earnings. Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Schor is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation Connected Learning Research Network. Schor’s research focuses on consumption, time use, and environmental sustainability. Schor’s most recent books are Sustainable Lifestyles and the Quest for Plenitude: Case Studies of the New Economy (Yale University Press, 2014) which she co-edited with Craig Thompson, and True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy (2011 by The Penguin Press, previously published as Plenitude.) As part of her work with the MacArthur Foundation, Schor is currently researching the “connected economy,” via a series of case studies of sharing platforms and their participants. She is also studying the relation between working hours, inequality and carbon emissions.