Mental health, Worker well-being, and Human sustainability in platform-based gig work: Evidence from Food delivery and Quick-commerce workers in India

Abstract

Over the past few years, in-home gig-work based on platforms, semantically understood as food delivery and quick-commerce services, has increasingly come to be an important portion of urban labour in India. Practically though, platforms present a reality of income instability, algorithmic pressure, customer abuse, exhausting workload and organisational restraint under the guise of gig work as flexible and accessible. The effects of these conditions on well-being, mental health and human sustainability at work are therefore studied. Based on 34 semi-structured interviews conducted with food delivery and quick-commerce workers in India, the study employs thematic analysis to unpack the structural, economic, emotional and institutional characteristics underpinning workers' experiences. The results indicate how the well-being of these workers is impacted by algorithmic control, low and unstable earnings, vehicle and fuel costs, weather risks, abusive customer practices, lack of basic facilities and limited platform support. Psychological resilience highlights a catchier on adaptation or coping supported either by the familiar, peers and individual adopting. But resilience is mainly a kind of compensatory reaction to structural deficiencies, not an indicator of sustainable work. This study adds to the literature on gig work and human resource management (HRM) by demonstrating that platform-based work can be bad for human sustainability when worker survival relies more on coping theory than institutional mechanisms.