Micro-Task Smartphone Crowdsourcing Compensation Model
RCTClinical Trial
Traditional hourly formal employment structures exclude individuals who cannot commit to uninterrupted multi-hour shifts. Low-income women without continuous free time are unable to monetize brief, scattered periods of availability throughout the day.
Picture this
Think of earning money like filling a bucket with water drops using a spoon whenever you have a free minute, rather than needing to run a hose for three hours straight. Small, independent mobile tasks allow workers to earn income in tiny increments during brief moments of spare time.
What the evidence says
Participants earned approximately INR 1 ($0.013 USD in 2021) per verified task, earning up to INR 4,000 ($52 USD) across the intervention duration.
- Who was studied
- 1,670 households in Kolkata, West Bengal, India utilizing Microsoft Research's Project Karya smartphone platform.
- How
- Randomized field evaluation testing part-time piece-rate micro-tasks (recording Bengali/Hindi audio sentences and audio verification) over two 4-week intervention rounds.
What to do
Develop smartphone-based micro-task applications with modular piece-rate payments to convert fragmented domestic spare time into household liquid earnings.
From the source
"Women were paid approximately INR 1 (US$0.013 in 2021) per completed task with the ability to earn up to INR 4,000 ($52 USD) over the course of the intervention."
Improving Female Labor Force Participation through Flexible, Internet-mediated Gig Work in India