Dual Job Holding and the Gig Economy: Allocation of Effort across Primary and Gig Jobs

This article explored motivations for allocating effort between “gig” and primary jobs using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. We found that main job hour constraints, a commonly cited rationale for traditional moonlighting, were a motivation for men but not for women. Other factors affecting effort were also gender specific: Men were driven to spend more time on gig jobs to increase their incomes, while women were motivated by insecurity in their main job. Women, though not men, who were more depressed based on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale earned less in their gig economy job. Finally, higher risk aversion reduced income from gig work for men, but not women. We concluded that motivations for effort allocated between the primary and gig jobs differ from those identified in past literature as important for traditional moonlighting decisions.