Do You Know Seniors Working in the “Gig” Economy?

My colleague, Becky Morgan, posted recently about the trend of senior-aged consumers as customers of Uber and other ride-hailing companies.   Smart marketing for the alternatives to traditional taxi-cabs includes finding ways for seniors to use and pay for services without smart phones.

Additional research demonstrates that seniors may also play an increasing role in the work force for ride-hailing companies.  They are drivers, not just passengers (both literally and metaphorically).  The latest research from the JP Morgan Chase Institute introduced me to a new label — the “gig economy,” and ride-hailing services are just one part of that economy: 

Our research shows that a rising number of seniors are supplementing their income — in non-trivial amounts — by participating in the “gig economy”, or Online Platform Economy. . . Among all adults, participation in the Online Platform Economy has been growing very quickly. To measure this growth, we assembled a dataset of over 260,000 anonymized Chase customers who earned income from at least of of 30 distinct platforms between October 2012 and September 2015 — the largest sample of platform earners to date. During this period, the cumulative participation rate grew from 0.1% of adults to 4.2%. a 47-fold growth.

 

Although most participants in the platform economy are younger workers, seniors are not standing on the sidelines.  In the 12 months ending September 2015, about 0.9 percent of seniors were providers in the

 

 in the platform economy, compared to 3.1 percent of the general population.  With over 47 million seniors in America, this translates to over 400,000 seniors participating in the platform economy. 

 

For those seniors who do participate, their earnings are often substantial.  In our research, we distinguish between labor and capital platforms.  Labor platforms, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, connect customers with freelance or contingent workers who perform discrete projects or assignments. Capital platforms, such as eBay or Airbnb, connect customers with individuals who rent assets or sell goods peer-to-peer.

For more on participation of seniors in the Gig Economy, and for other interesting data points about seniors as both workers and spenders, read Past 65 and Still Working: Big Data Insights on Senior Citizens’ Financial Lives, from JP Morgan Chase Institute.