Exploring the Interplay Between Employee Well-Being and Job Satisfaction in the Gig Economy: A Study of On-Demand Service Workers in India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/ijmds.v15n10.013Keywords:
Gig economy, Platform-based work, Employee well-being, Job satisfaction, Occupational stress, Factor analysis, Labor precarity, Emerging marketsAbstract
Background: The rapid expansion of the platform-based gig economy has radically transformed contemporary labour markets, offering unprecedented flexibility, but also generating considerable precarity. Although the macroeconomic impacts of platform labour have been well documented in the existing literature, a critical gap exists regarding the micro-level psychological outcomes for workers, especially in emerging markets. Objectives: This exploratory study identifies the multiple determinants that affecting employee well-being and job satisfaction of gig workers employed in on-demand transportation and food delivery services in Jalandhar, India. Methods: This study based on primary survey data of 100 active gig workers, based on a synthesised theoretical framework combining the Precarity Framework and Job Demands-Resources models. The latent dimensional structures of well-being and satisfaction are extracted using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the Varimax rotation. Results: The empirical results indicate that the six factors are the primary determinants of employee well-being, strongly based on workplace safety, emotional health, work flexibility, and the burden of occupational stress, which together explain 61.35% of the variance. At the same time, job satisfaction is affected by pay fairness, work-life balance, work experience, and income stability (64.06% variance). Also, an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression shows that Income Sufficiency and Work-Life Balance are the most important determinants of job satisfaction (R2 = 0.442), while physical workplace safety is statistically insignificant. K-Means clustering finally identifies three unique worker personas, revealing the disturbing fact that 35% of the workforce is in deep structural precarity and at risk of burnout.
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