‘Woeful Pay, But Still, I Enjoy It’: Refining Subjective Job Quality in Ride‐Share Work

ABSTRACT Workers who experience structural barriers in the labour market are overrepresented in the gig economy. There is limited research on how the broader context of labour markets and welfare systems shapes workers' motivations for, and subjective understandings of, ride‐share work. Using established concepts of ‘constrained agency’, ‘labour market objectives’ and ‘life stories’ from labour geography, this study develops a conceptual framework to advance subjective understandings of job quality. Drawing upon 59 interviews with workers from three distinct but overlapping disadvantaged groups (workers with disability, caring responsibilities and/or aged 45 and over), we focus on the experiences of and motivations for the work on a market‐leading platform in Australia. Our findings highlight that subjective job quality perceptions are a complex mesh of individual circumstances and multi‐layered social structures. Our framework helps to better understand why the work organisation and technology of the platform are valued by some yet loathed by others.