Relational frames of care: Constructing care work in the gig economy

There has been a steady rise in platform-based care work around the world where private care -workers and care-seekers are matched by digital intermediary platforms for ‘care work gigs’. Care platforms position themselves as distinct from the typical transactional work arrangements in the gig economy, yet employ similar algorithmic features and functions to organise care work. Employing ethics-of-care as an interpretive lens, this article illustrates how care platforms use the relational frames of connection, community and concern to construct platform-based care work as mutually beneficial, but private, arrangements between care-workers and care-seekers. We argue, this relational framing on the one hand empowers users to exercise autonomy and control in organising care work, yet on the other hand highlights frictions that operate to limit the responsibility of care platforms, create information asymmetries and power differentials that exacerbate interdependence between care-workers and care-seekers and can create vulnerabilities for workers.