Work

Workers’ Health under Algorithmic Management: Emerging Findings and Urgent Research Questions

Year: 2023

Type: review

Abstract: Algorithms are increasingly used instead of humans to perform core management functions, yet public health research on the implications of this phenomenon for worker health and well-being has not kept pace with these changing work arrangements. Algorithmic management has the potential to influence several dimensions of job quality with known links to worker health, including workload, income security, task significance, schedule stability, socioemotional rewards, interpersonal relations, decision authority, and organizational trust. To describe the ways algorithmic management may influence workers' health, this review summarizes available literature from public health, sociology, management science, and human-computer interaction studies, highlighting the dimensions of job quality associated with work stress and occupational safety. We focus on the example of work for platform-based food and grocery delivery companies; these businesses are growing rapidly worldwide and their effects on workers and policies to address those effects have received significant attention. We conclude with a discussion of research challenges and needs, with the goal of understanding and addressing the effects of this increasingly used technology on worker health and health equity.

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20021239

Authors: Emilia F. Vignola, Sherry Baron, Elizabeth Abreu Plasencia, Mustafa Hussein, Nevin Cohen

Institutions: City University of New York, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, Queens College, CUNY

Language: English

Topic: Digital Economy and Work Transformation

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,780