Professor Dr. Lars Hornuf and Daniel Vrankar have published a new working paper titled "Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis".

Their meta-analysis includes 104 wages from eight different countries. In total, the analysis is based on around 76,000 data points from 22 online work platforms collected and published over the last twelve years. The authors identify average hourly wages for "microtasking" crowdworkers of less than $6 per hour, but note that crowdworkers classified as "online freelancers" can earn hourly wages of up to $20 per hour. One potential explanation for this difference includes the much higher requirement profile in "online freelancing." Particularly, the results of the investigation of different methodologies in crowdworker wage determination are relevant for future research in this regard. Thus, significant differences can be found between hourly wages determined by survey and those determined by technology. Also, ignoring unpaid work, such as searching and evaluating tasks, could significantly bias hourly wages. According to the authors, the comparability of hourly wages in crowdworking could be experimentally increased by quantifying the effect of potential biases. This comparability is particularly relevant for the current policy debates around social security and the labor classification of crowdworkers.

The full article can be downloaded here.