Who deserves protection? Deservingness, intergroup contact, and public support for gig workers’ rights
2026-07-30
The rapid expansion of platform-mediated gig work has intensified debates over whether gig workers should receive social and employment rights comparable to those of standard employees. Yet, despite its high political salience, we know little about how citizens evaluate gig workers’ entitlement to such protections. Gig work, especially in ride hailing and food delivery, is often precarious, with a lack of control at work, weaker contribution records, and overrepresentation of migrant workers—aspects that previous research has identified as central to welfare deservingness judgments. This makes deservingness a particularly relevant lens for analysing public support for gig workers’ rights. With a pre-registered factorial vignette experiment in a six-country survey (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), we examine the general population’s willingness to pay for ride-hailing gig workers’ improved rights. We find that support for improved rights closely follows core deservingness dimensions: workers perceived as in need, showing effort on the job and lacking control receive higher support, whereas migrant status and low reciprocity reduce it. Yet, deservingness cues explain only part of the variation. Exploratory analyses show that frequent use of gig services and personal ties with gig workers associate with a higher willingness to pay, showing the relevance of intergroup contact.