Digital Intermediation in Paid Domestic Work in Argentina: An Analysis of Ambivalent Effects on Working Conditions

Abstract

Recent studies offer ambivalent conclusions on the effect of digital intermediaries in domestic and care work; while some suggest that the digital platforms exacerbate and perpetuate the precariousness of the sector as well as its underlying social inequalities, others contend that the effects of these technologies are not yet clear. Drawing on these perspectives but focusing specifically on the platforms’ organizational structures, this article contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the differential impact of digital intermediaries in this occupation. Based on a study of the digital platform Zolvers in Argentina, the article analyzes the effects on working conditions of three types of working arrangements: regular work managed by the digital intermediary, regular work managed by the employer household, and casual ‘one-time-only’ jobs. This research uses a mixed methods approach, including a survey of 300 domestic workers, 20 semi-directed interviews, and two focus groups with workers using Zolvers.

Keywords

digital platforms digital intermediaries domestic work care work business models recruitment sociology of work Argentina

Introduction

Over the last decade, digital labor platforms have been gaining traction in the domestic and care work industry. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) (2021: 45), only 28 digital intermediaries operated in this sector worldwide in 2010; however, by 2020 this number reached 224. Nevertheless, and despite this rise, digital intermediaries did not develop a uniform business model. Their forms of intervention vary locally, depending on the characteristics of the labor market, the degree to which the sector incorporates women into the workforce, the regulatory framework in place, and the modes of labor recruitment traditionally used. Digital intermediaries thus vary in terms of the working arrangements proposed, particularly in regard to working time—be it live-in, full-time, part-time or hourly work—the length of the labor relation—whether regular or casual positions; as well as labor status (which largely depends on the employer) (Poblete et al., 2024a). Workers can be hired as self-employed workers (legally self-registered in this category), employees of the digital platforms, or employees of the households in which they provide services (Pereyra et al., 2023). In the latter case, it is not unusual to find that workers are hired informally (without an employment contract).

In countries where the use of intermediaries—that is, recruitment or employment agencies—has been common in the past, the innovations introduced by these new actors are mainly related to the application of digital technologies (Tandon and Rathi, 2021). By contrast, in those countries where recruitment is traditionally based on personal recommendations (word of mouth)—such as in Latin America, the intervention of digital intermediaries may be more disruptive, bringing new forms of hiring and organization to the sector (Cebollada, 2021; Pereyra et al., 2023; Tizziani and Poblete, 2022). Even though national surveys do not always capture indirect employment, the ILO suggests that the role of intermediaries in the sector remains marginal.¹ The Dominican Republic and Ecuador show the most significant rates of indirect employment in the sector, with 16% and 18% of domestic workers hired using intermediaries, respectively. In Uruguay, 10% of domestic workers are hired via intermediaries and, in Argentina that number is only 5%. In addition, in Brazil and Peru, less than 1% of all domestic workers are indirectly employed (ILO, 2021: 280). Nonetheless, recent studies reveal an increase in the number of digital platforms that offer cleaning and care services in the region (Blanchard, 2023; Micha, 2024; Pereyra et al., 2023). The countries in which these intermediaries have a more significant presence are Brazil, Colombia, and Chile, followed by Mexico and Argentina.

While research based in countries of the Global North suggests that these platforms have generated new gray zones in which legal protections are bypassed and thus given rise to more precarious labor conditions (Pulignano et al., 2023; Van Doorn, 2017), studies on countries in the Global South have emphasized more ambivalent effects (Tandon and Rathi, 2024). In labor markets where domestic work already largely operated outside legal frameworks, some studies contend that digital intermediaries have in fact introduced some forms of ‘standardization’, such as a rise in the use of banking services or a clearer articulation of assigned tasks and schedules (Trojansky, 2020). Likewise, other studies have found that digital labor platforms can be employed as instruments for the promotion of rights (Tizziani and Poblete, 2022) and could also contribute to increasing levels of formalization (Poblete et al., 2024b; Posso et al., 2024). That is, in regions where jobs in the sector are mostly informal and precarious—such as in Latin America where 95% of domestic workers do not have a legal contract (Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), 2021)–, digital intermediation could spark some improvements in working conditions.

With the aim of better understanding how digital intermediaries may impact domestic work, particularly in contexts with high informality and precarious working conditions, this article focuses on the study of the digital platform Zolvers in Argentina. The company was chosen because it is the most important digital labor platform in the country and was the first to develop this kind of intermediation in 2014; the platform later expanded to Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. According to one of its founders, the platform’s main objective is to ‘change the reality of domestic work in Latin America.’² Therefore, the promotion of formal labor contracts and the introduction of various technical and organizational tools aiming to facilitate employers’ compliance with the law represent an important part of the platform’s strategy. Nevertheless, some of the tools appear to exacerbate already precarious working conditions. Using a mixed method approach, this article seeks to understand the ambivalent effects of digital platforms by focusing on how these various technical and organizational tools play a role in the formalization of labor relations, payment of wages, working time schedules and the recognition of time to rest (such as national holidays and paid vacations). Thus, it aims to explain how digital platforms contribute to improving or worsening (or both) domestic workers’ working conditions.

The article is organized into five sections. The first summarizes the findings of recent research on the effects of digital intermediaries in the domestic work sector and presents our framework. The second describes Zolvers modus operandi in the context of Argentina. The third describes the methods and data collection. The fourth section, based on the quantitative sample of the study, presents a general profile of Zolvers’ workers and their jobs, seeking to establish comparisons with domestic workers nationwide. Finally, the fifth section analyzes the way in which each one of the different modalities of hiring promoted by the platform establish specific working conditions.

The Uber-ization of Domestic Work?

Legal protections have historically had a relatively low impact on the domestic work sector. Although some countries or regions of the world exhibit greater coverage and compliance with legislation than in others, the sector is largely characterized by high levels of informality and precarious working conditions as compared to other occupations (ILO, 2021). Because the state cannot enter a private home to inspect for regulation compliance (Vega Ruiz, 2011) and employers only partially acknowledge domestic workers’ rights, most domestic workers do not have access to labor and social security rights (ILO, 2021; Jaherling et al., 2024; Paul, 2024; Pérez and Gandolfi, 2024). Working conditions and labor status are mostly negotiated facet-to-face, manly on everyday basis; negotiations are also often ongoing and take place over the course of the labor relation (Pereyra and Poblete, 2024; Tizziani and Poblete, 2022). Therefore, the sector is fertile ground for digital platforms to develop, providing legal gray zones (Asaïs, 2014; Bureau and Dieudaide, 2018). As literature has shown for other occupations such as delivery and transportation, digital work platforms fragment labor in small tasks or ‘gigs’ (Sun et al., 2021), that are organized through algorithmic management (Ivanova et al., 2018; Pulignano and Franke, 2022; Rani et al., 2022), shifting the employer’s responsibilities and risks to workers (Cherry, 2016; De Stefano, 2016; Kocher, 2022), without taking into account workers’ legal protections (Berg et al., 2018). Since digital work platforms largely avoid taking on an employment relationship (Pralss, 2018; Todolí Signes, 2017), workers become, by default, their own company—a kind of ‘Me LC’. (Morin, 1999), willing to accept any working conditions (Pulignano, 2024).

Early scholarship on digital intermediaries in the domestic and care service sector relied on a dominant analytical model; the transportation company Uber served as the paradigmatic case. The neologism ‘uberization’ is suggestive of the preliminary finding that digital platforms produced a disruption in the labor market that resulted in more precarious working conditions. A variety of cases have since been analyzed; these include studies in countries of the Global North and South; in cleaning and care work, in childcare and elderly care, as well as for casual, short- or long-term work. The emerging literature appears to offer two different conceptions of the effects produced by digital intermediaries. The first position argues that, similar to other sectors, the intervention of digital platforms in domestic work sector increases the precariousness of working conditions, while the second position emphasizes more ambivalent effects.

This first position, which suggests an ‘uberization’ of paid domestic work, is primarily based on studies conducted in the Global North. These investigations show that digital platforms manage to generate informal work even when the labor market is highly regulated (Kalla, 2022; Pulignano et al., 2023). In addition, research in all countries suggests that digital platforms contribute to the multiplication of tasks and succession of jobs (Macdonald, 2021); the use of control mechanisms based on reputation systems (Fetterolf, 2022; Flanagan, 2019); income irregularity (McDonald et al., 2021; Sibiya and du Toit, 2022); absence of legal protections (Ferreira Vale and Nociolini Rebechi, 2021; Rodríguez-Modroño et al., 2022; Trojansky, 2020); as well as a heightened transfer of costs and risks to domestic workers (McDonald et al., 2021). This line of research indicates that the intervention of digital platforms deepens inequalities underlying paid domestic work (Gruszka et al., 2022; Hunt and Samman, 2019; Rodríguez-Modroño et al., 2022; Ticona and Mateescu, 2018; Van Doorn, 2017).

The second position, which has found more ambivalent effects, was—at least initially—grounded in case studies in the Global South. When comparing the working conditions of jobs mediated by digital platforms with those that were not, researchers found some positive effects (Hunt and Machingura, 2016; Tandon and Rathi, 2024). Although these investigations also find that precariousness and inequalities may grow with the use of digital intermediaries, they argue that the platforms can also contribute to an increase in the visibility of degraded working conditions (Ticona and Mateescu, 2018) and the formalization of the employment relationship, thus permitting access to social protections (Madariaga et al., 2019; Pereyra et al., 2023; Reygadas, 2020). They also find greater institutionalization in regard to some aspects of the employment relationship, such as the inclusion of workers in the banking system (Blanchard, 2023; Tandon and Rathi, 2024; Ticona and Mateescu, 2018), the recording of hours worked and income (Hunt and Machingura, 2016), the possibility of building more effective work agendas that enable improved work-life balance (Pereyra et al., 2023; Trojansky, 2020), the provision of protection mechanisms against abuse (Kalla, 2022; Sibiya and du Toit, 2022), and the circulation of information on labor rights that enable better negotiations regarding working conditions (Tizziani and Poblete, 2022). Likewise, several studies point out the potential of technology to make an impact on the discriminatory logics that prevail in the sector, particularly when the platforms are used by domestic workers’ cooperatives (Muralidhara, 2022; Osiki, 2024). Within this second position, this article argues that digital platforms’ ambivalent effects are related to the platform’s role in hiring.

The literature describes four models of intervention, although they present different characteristics from country to country. In most national contexts, the on-demand model was the first to take root; it was also the first to be identified (Hunt and Machingura, 2016; Ticona and Mateescu, 2018). Mirroring digital work platforms in the delivery and transportation sectors, on-demand platforms in the domestic and care sector offer irregular, short hour, and one-off, casual jobs (Tandon and Rathi, 2021). In these cases, there is no employment relationship because the figure of the employer disappears: the digital platform becomes a mere technical intermediary and the household becomes a client (Digital Future Society, 2021; Rodríguez-Modroño et al., 2022; Sibiya and du Toit, 2022).

The second model is often referred to as the marketplace model. Seeking to connect supply with demand for cleaning and care services, digital intermediaries provide a pool of workers for household clients; the clients can then select the ‘perfect’ worker for the gig by using filters designed to customize their search. Although this model is similar to on-demand model since it only focuses on casual jobs—and therefore, predominantly informal jobs–, the digital platform plays no role in intermediation (Rodríguez-Modroño, 2024; Tandon and Rathi, 2021). Marketplaces rely on domestic and care workers laboring as independent contractors, but most workers are not legally registered as such (Gruszka et al., 2022).

The third model—digital placement agencies—has been developed in several countries (India, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico) with specific variations in each region (Fragale Filho and dos Santos Lima, 2024; Rodríguez-Modroño et al., 2022; Tandon and Rathi, 2021; Teixeira, 2024; Andrada et al., 2023). These digital platforms focus on selecting workers and matching them with a job. In some countries, these intermediaries took an active role in negotiating workers’ contracts and wages (Tandon and Rathi, 2021). Some intermediaries also include staff management services in which they intervene in the enrollment of the domestic worker in the social security system, salary payment, preparation of pay slips and, in some cases, they may also process the mandatory monthly payments to social security (Pereyra et al., 2023). It is worth noting that even when digital platforms offer management services, the labor relationship remains one between the household—in the role of employer—and the domestic worker.

Finally, in the fourth model—digital labor agencies—workers are hired by the digital intermediary but provide services to several households. Here, the intermediary assumes the role of an employer (Pereyra et al., 2023; Posso et al., 2024).

These four models have effects on two crucial dimensions of the labor relation: first, labor status, and second, working arrangements, which relates to working time and the length of the labor relation. Thus, we can observe a variety of methods in hiring domestic and care workers, with different levels of legal protections. The most unprotected hiring methods were those using digital platforms that employed the on-demand and marketplace models; these models provide no possibility for the establishment of an employment relation, and consequently, likewise deny labor and social security rights. Furthermore, when domestic and care workers are legally registered, they are self-employed workers, a legal status with less protections than employees in most legal frameworks. These platforms offer short-hour jobs on a casual basis. Working conditions in these cases are very precarious.

In contrast, digital placement agencies propose jobs with better working conditions than on-demand platforms or marketplaces, although these agencies still promote precarious work: laborers often take on a number of contracts that may be long term but offer only a few hours of work per week. In addition, the level of formalization is often quite low as the recognition of the domestic and care workers’ labor and social security rights depends on the willingness of the employer to comply with the law. Thus, in most cases, legal protections are only partially respected.

Finally, digital labor agencies provide more protected positions due to the fact that domestic and care workers are employees of the digital platform. Therefore, the platform must comply with the employer’s legal obligation to register the worker and pay monthly contributions to the social security system, to respect working time limits and its protections (such as rest time, payment of extra-hours), to pay the legal minimum wage, among others. Although working time is fragmented in many gigs that each run only a few hours, in this kind of platform, working conditions are considerably better (Posso et al., 2024).

In Argentina, Zolvers has the peculiarity of proposing different modalities for hiring, which oscillate between the digital placement agencies and the on-demand models. Thus, different modalities of hiring co-exist on one single platform. Accordingly, the platform effects are disparate and ambivalent. With this in mind, this analysis pays particular attention to formalization, which, as will be explained further on, is a key challenge in the domestic and care sector. Formalization represents a necessary initial step for effective access to labor and social protections. Thus, to understand the ambivalent effects of this digital platform for domestic workers’ working conditions, this study focuses on the payment of wages, the limitation of working time and the recognition of rest time as holidays and paid vacations in each hiring modality proposed by Zolvers.

Zolvers’ Modus Operandi

In Argentina, paid domestic work represents a significant share of the labor market; in 2022, the sector represented nearly 7% of overall employment and 15% of female employment. It is an almost completely feminized activity composed of 1.6 million workers and it constitutes the main occupation for urban low-income women (Micha et al., 2024). Although only 25% of domestic workers have a formal position,³ since 2013, all domestic workers ‘regardless of the number of hours worked per day or days per week’ are entitled to labor and social security rights by the Law 26.844 (art.1). The law stipulates that the domestic worker must be enrolled to the social security system since day one, having the right to health and hazard insurances, unemployment and pension benefits. As employees, domestic workers also have the right to paid vacations, national holidays, sick leave, overtime, annual bonuses, a trial period and severance payment. The law dictates that the labor contract can only be established between the domestic worker and one member of the household, who is legally considered the employer. There are no provisions that suggest that a third party could play that role, such as a temporary employment agency. Thus, within this legal framework, digital platforms mainly enter the sector as digital placement agencies. Still, they can also operate outside the law through on-demand and marketplace models as there are no legal provisions for domestic workers to register as self-employed workers⁴ (Poblete, 2019). Zolvers started primarily as a digital placement agency but later, also introduced a service based on on-demand model.

As a digital placement agency, Zolvers clarifies in its website that households are the employers, and that the digital platform is only an intermediary to find a match between domestic workers who look for jobs and households who request domestic services—mostly cleaning—‘on an occupational basis.’⁵ The costs of intermediation is exclusively borne by employers. According to the founding partners, the platform has nearly 20,000 active workers.⁶ The company’s business model differs slightly between Argentina and the rest of the countries where it operates (Chile, Colombia and Mexico). While in those three countries, the platform exclusively offers the service of selection of staff and digital matching, in Argentina staff management services are added as a package called Zolvers Pagos. This package is optional for employers, although it is aggressively promoted by the company as it constitutes its main source of stable income. For a monthly fee, Zolvers Pagos allows employers to, first, disengage from the payment of salaries: salaries are calculated by the company based on the monthly hours, automatically deducted from the employers’ bank accounts and transferred to the workers. In addition, if the employer so wishes, the platform can enroll the worker in the social security system and manage the payment of employers’ monthly contributions.

Thus, as a digital placement agency, Zolvers proposes two recruitment modalities: regular jobs managed by the employer, and regular jobs managed by the platform on behalf of the employer. In both cases, the intervention of the company in defining wages only corresponds to the initial 60 days, during which time Zolvers’ ‘satisfaction guarantee’ is in play. This ‘guarantee’ permits employers to request a different worker if they are not satisfied with the services provided; a request that can be made up to five times. Along with this guarantee, Zolvers encourages the hiring of workers that have been verified: the platform requests that workers present their criminal records, and the digital platform corroborates their previous work experiences. Like digital platforms in other sectors, it also allows employers to evaluate workers’ performance through scores and comments. This is a common feature in platforms and relevant to this sector, in which the idea of ‘trust’ is key (Schoenbaum, 2016).

Regular positions proposed by Zolvers are mostly characterized by very short hours per week—generally less than five weekly hours. Nonetheless, according to workers, the relatively abundant number of these short-hour job offers allows them to assemble personalized and flexible work schedules. Indeed, they value this option, a sentiment echoed in studies on other digital platforms in this sector (Hunt and Machingura, 2016; Van Doorn, 2017) as well as in works on other sectors (Reygadas, 2020; Rodríguez, 2019). Workers suggest that the tailor-made work schedules allow them to balance paid work and (unpaid) care responsibilities and to pursue educational or vocational training. This is, undoubtedly, a central issue when it comes to the chances of labor market participation for low-income women (Espino, 2011; Faur and Pereyra, 2018).

Although the core of the business model lies in establishing regular long-term labor relationships, the platform also offers services using the on-demand model. The ‘one-time’ occasional services—called ‘one-time only’– were presented first as cleaning services for a small business or after a move. However, many households use the service to avoid long-term labor relations and the obligations associated with their role as employers.

Most of the domestic workers interviewed combined a number of short-hour jobs to reach a living wage, and also utilized different hiring modalities: they labored in regular positions managed by the platform on behalf of employers, in regular positions managed directly by employers and they also often made use of a wide range of ‘one-time-only’ jobs to supplement their income.

Research Design and Methods

The article uses a mixed method approach and focuses on domestic workers’ perspectives of the jobs mediated by Zolvers before and after the pandemic. The fieldwork was conducted in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires at three different stages between 2020 and 2022. As these workers constitute a ‘hidden population’ or a ‘hard-to-reach population’ (Spreen, 1992), the study benefited from the cooperation of platform owners to connect with its workers (Poblete et al., 2024a). Since the company tends to highlight its positive impact in terms of working conditions (especially in regard to formalization levels) owners were quite willing to cooperate in order to produce empirical evidence.

The first stage of fieldwork included twenty semi-structured interviews with workers conducted between February and July 2020, based on contacts provided by the platform (an economic incentive for participation was offered). These interviews were of an exploratory nature; they collected information about workers’ background and experiences within and outside the platform. Workers were asked about their previous labor trajectories, their reasons for joining the platform, working conditions, work schedules, earnings, access to social protections and conciliation with care responsibilities. As the Covid-19 crisis took place during this fieldwork, several questions were added to inquire about the impact of the pandemic on labor activity and regarding the platform’s response to the crisis. However, overall, questions focused on labor conditions before the pandemic.

The information collected in this first stage was then used to design closed-form questionnaires—based on the same themes—in order to collect quantitative data. Therefore, a quantitative survey of 300 cases was carried out between December 2020 and January 2021.⁷ The survey permitted us to collect data on the characteristics of respondents’ simultaneous insertions. The selection of cases was carried out randomly based on a complete list of active workers provided by the company itself and an economic incentive was offered to participants. The survey was administered through the CATI system (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing). In addition, in order to establish comparisons with the sector as a whole, data from Argentina’s Household Permanent Survey was used.

The third stage included two focus groups with domestic workers conducted in June 2022. The participants were selected with different intentional quotas related to the dimensions of research interests in mind: the type of labor arrangement (in terms of the use/lack of use of the Zolvers Pagos system, hours per week, tasks performed, etc.) and the formalization status of workers. In line with what is suggested by the literature on this method, all focus groups were comprised of 6 to 7 participants and took place over an hour and a half. Once again, a financial incentive was offered in order to facilitate engagement.

One important final comment regarding the analysis of the information collected relates to its temporal dimension. As expected, the pandemic generated a profound impact on these workers’ labor situations. Both in-depth interviews and the quantitative survey inquired about experiences before and during the pandemic. The data related to the platforms’ workers during the critical period of the pandemic was analyzed and published in other studies (Pereyra et al., 2023; Poblete et al., 2024b); for reasons of space and focus, this article is based on data related to experiences before and after the pandemic. It is also important to note that, while there are some after-effects of the Covid-19 crisis, working conditions have largely normalized, returning to levels similar to those of the pre-pandemic period (Pereyra and Poblete, 2024).

Zolvers’ Workers and Their Jobs

Who are Zolvers workers? How similar or different are they from other domestic workers? What are the basic characteristics of Zolvers jobs? Do they differ from those outside the platform?

According to the sociodemographic variables that can be found both in the quantitative sample collected in this research as well as in the Argentina Household Permanent Survey, the profile of platform workers differs significantly from that of domestic workers in general (Figure 1). In line with what has been observed for platform workers in general, Zolvers users represent a younger workforce with significantly higher levels of formal education—something that has often been attributed to the demand of digital skills required to move in a digital environment—(ILO, 2021; Madariaga et al., 2019). In this same sense, the proportion of workers who attended an educational establishment at the time of the survey was significantly higher among Zolvers’ than outside it. The proportion of migrants from another country is higher among domestic workers who use this type of digital intermediation:⁸ the vast majority is made up of migrants from Venezuela, characterized by their high educational levels (84% completed tertiary or university studies). In relation to family situations, this is a segment with fewer care responsibilities, compared to the whole of this occupational category.

Figure 1.

Sociodemographic profile of Zolvers workers versus domestic workers overall Argentina, 2019.

Even if formalization rates have improved in recent years among the domestic service sector, they still remain low, at levels close to 25% (Pereyra and Poblete, 2024). Zolvers’ workers instead exhibit a higher level of formalization: in 2019, 44% of them had at least one formal insertion. As will be discussed further later, this data suggests that the higher rate of formalization observed among Zolvers workers is more likely to be associated with the platform’s services rather than personal characteristics of the workers.

Domestic workers’ hourly dedication to labor is relatively low when compared to other female workers in Argentina: short-hour jobs paid by the hour have a significant and growing weight. Indeed, employees whose main job takes less than 24 weekly hours⁹ represent two thirds of this workforce (Figure 2). If domestic workers as a whole exhibit the prevalence of short-hour jobs, this trend intensifies among platform workers. In fact, this kind of job represents almost the entire offer of the platform: 93% of platform workers declare that their main job obtained through the company totals less than 24 weekly hours. In fact, for more than one-third of these platform workers (35%) the main job obtained through digital intermediation implies only one to five weekly hours—whereas among domestic workers as a whole 12% of workers have a main job of such characteristics (Figure 2). In this sense, it is interesting to note that the platform has achieved relatively high levels of formalization precisely in the short-hour job segment, which has proven to be the most elusive to legal contracts in the sector as a whole (Pereyra and Poblete, 2024).

Figure 2.

Weekly hours in the main job position. Zolvers workers and total domestic workers.

However, despite the almost total predominance of short-hour contracts, this does not necessarily mean that platform workers labor less than their counterparts in traditional insertions. As suggested previously, for platform workers, multi-employment is often the norm. The average number of employers is 3.3 (for the sector in general this number decreases to 1.5). Although workers rely heavily on Zolvers to assemble multi-employment arrangements, they do not lack contacts with employers outside this digital environment: 33% combine jobs within and outside the platform. In addition, 35% held one or more jobs paid through Zolvers Pagos and 62% took one-time-only jobs at least once a month to supplement income.

The Effects of Hiring Modalities on the Working Conditions

Despite the higher rate of formalization observed in jobs obtained through Zolvers, this indicator can conceal rather unequal situations. In fact, formalization rates and working conditions in general depend on the three hiring modalities that are promoted by the platform: regular jobs managed by the platform on behalf of employers; regular jobs obtained through the platform managed directly by employers; and ‘one-time-only’ jobs.

Digital Platform Management of Regular Jobs

Within the sample of Zolvers’ workers collected in the survey, the only variable clearly correlated with higher formalization is related to workers whose primary job is managed by the platform on behalf of employers. Indeed, when jobs are administered through the Zolvers Pagos system, formalization increases to 66%.¹⁰ However, jobs managed by Zolvers Pagos represent only 37% of the total number of jobs on the platform. Half of the domestic workers interviewed reported that the system was beneficial, and they stated that they preferred to apply for these kinds of positions. When jobs are posted, workers can see if Zolvers Pagos would be used by the employer. That is relevant because the use of Zolvers Pagos implies that the job is more like to be formal:

The platform tells you upfront when it is through Zolvers Pagos, when it is for one day only and so on. When it is through Zolvers Pagos, most likely the employer wants you to be formalized, so when you go in, they formalize you right away. (Vanesa, 41 years old, two jobs through Zolvers)

Although the platform never stipulates that it is mandatory for employers to formally register the worker in the social security system, its intermediation in the management of the labor relation implies, in the experience of the workers, greater chances of formalization. This is because, among the many tools included in the Zolvers Pagos package, there is a paid service that takes care of monthly contributions to social security on behalf of employers.

Workers’ accounts highlight that these higher chances of formalization are an advantage of platform management. Not only there is an intrinsic moral value assigned to formality—as ‘the right thing to do’—but it also translates into greater predictability regarding the conditions under which the work is carried out, particularly in relation to the payment of wages:

Normally, if the employer says to you ‘I don’t have any money with me right now’ or they tell you ‘I won’t be at home, don’t come’, you don’t get paid. But, when the job is managed through Zolvers Pagos, you don’t worry, you are paid monthly, so you get paid no matter what. (Jimena, 24 years old, one job through Zolvers)

Using Zolvers Pagos also offers a guarantee of effective access to labor rights related to time off from work (holidays, vacations, sick leave) due to its automated monthly payment:

I always want to work with Zolvers Pagos because I don’t have to discuss with the employer about anything. For example, national holidays; that is in the law. And, when you are on Zolvers Pagos, they have to grant you the day off but when you aren’t, they might give you the day off or not. They could ask you to go another day. (Romina, 38 years old, four jobs through Zolvers)

In addition, according to the workers, Zolvers Pagos also means steadier organization of tasks and schedules:

With Zolvers Pagos, the client has no way to change your workday, because I have already verified this. The client who hired me on a Monday and then decided to move me to a Friday cannot change it. (Sonia, 59 years old, five jobs through Zolvers)

The fact that the platform does not allow employers to alter accepted schedules is significant, particularly as workers tend to hold multiple jobs using the platform, and thus often have complex work agendas. In this way, Zolvers Pagos limits numerous possible situations in which workers must negotiate with their employers, which are often perceived as moments of conflict. The impact of contingent arrangements between workers and employers in the definition of working conditions has been analyzed by numerous studies as one of the characteristics of paid domestic work (Gorbán and Tizziani, 2018; Pereyra, 2017; Pereyra and Tizziani, 2013). In these contexts, a central component of the worker’s experience—her schedules, the intensity and rhythm of work, required tasks, her access to labor rights and benefits, among many others—depend on face-to-face negotiations that are marked by a social asymmetry. This unequal negotiation generates unstable arrangements which are often modified according to the changing needs of the employer household. In workers’ accounts, direct management by the digital platform helps to limit these negotiations, to standardize the conditions under which tasks are performed and to generate stable arrangements from the outset of the labor relation.

Regular Jobs Managed By the Employer

Jobs obtained through the digital platform but managed by the employer give rise to very heterogeneous work situations, both in terms of registration on the social security system and access to labor rights. In this modality, the formality is less certain as compared to jobs in the Zolvers Pagos system:

What happens is that with Zolvers it is much easier to get a job, rather than sending out resumés, it is much easier to look at the platform and choose the job. But then, in terms of working conditions, it depends on the employers: if they are willing to formalize you or not. There is no difference, I don’t see any difference with the jobs obtained outside the platform because it always depends on the employer. (Mariela, 34 years old, one job through Zolvers)

However, quantitative data from the survey indicates that in these types of jobs, the formalization rate is still moderately higher as compared to the sector as a whole (32% vs 25%). This situation may be associated to at least two different factors. On one hand, this may be related to the strong publicity of the platform when it comes to the Zolvers Pagos system, which includes advertisements on the benefits of formalization. On the other hand, employers who approach the platform know that they are leaving a ‘digital trace’ of the employment relationship and thus may be a population with (at least a slightly) higher propensity to formalize.

The formalization gap of the jobs ‘outside’ the platform is indisputably less pronounced as in the case of jobs managed through Zolvers Pagos; this may be why workers tend to perceive that this labor modality offers working conditions very similar to those found in the sector in general. Thus, in workers’ accounts, formalization usually appears as the prerogative of employers, associated with their ‘goodwill’, ‘good treatment’ or ‘recognition’ of work performed. Even so, the fact that formalization is legally mandatory is well known to workers and can arise as a subject of ‘demand’. Labor arrangements thus depend on workers’ ability to negotiate. Better positioned workers—who know their rights and are more willing to change jobs in search of better working conditions—tend to consider formality to be a requirement for remaining in their jobs from the outset of the labor relationship:

When I arrive at a job, I bring the photocopy of my ID card, I don’t tell the employers directly because I know they don’t know how I work, but I say: this is for you, so you can complete the formalization process.

Interviewer: What if the employer says no?

I don’t go back, I don’t even leave the job, I write to Zolvers and say: I only take formal jobs, this client is not interested in formalizing me, please, solve this. (Sonia, 59 years old, five jobs through Zolvers)

Although the platform does not directly ‘solve’ these issues, the ease of access and the number of positions available generates less worker dependence on a single employer; therefore, workers’ margin for negotiation improves. However, not all workers have the same bargaining power. Many of them, despite valuing formalization, remain in informal jobs for long periods:

For the first three months that I was with this employer, she used Zolvers Pagos, then she got off the platform and I’m still not formalized. I’ve been with her for six years. I tell her all the time and she always tells me: oh yes, I always forget, sorry, but I’m going to find out about that. And she’s had me like this for a year now, it’s like she’s beaten me out of exhaustion. (Vanesa, 41 years old, two jobs through Zolvers)

Of all the houses I have I got through Zolvers, in two I am formalized and in one I am not. In the latter case, it’s an arrangement between us. For now, this employer doesn’t formalize me, but it’s okay because we agreed that she pays me a little more per hour, she doesn’t want to commit too much. (Irina, 35 years old, three jobs through Zolvers)

The outcome of negotiations around job formalization is not always favorable to domestic workers. Workers like Irina may give up on requesting formalization in order to negotiate higher salaries than those initially offered by the platform. In fact, informality does not necessarily imply the total exclusion from the benefits associated with an employment contract. This varied access to labor rights, beyond the formal or informal nature of the positions, is presented as a distinctive feature of the sector (Pereyra, 2017; Pereyra and Poblete, 2024). In the case of the domestic workers who participated in our study, this is particularly noticeable in relation to the payment of Christmas bonuses and obtaining vacations:

In the household where I work in the morning, where I am informal, she still pays me my annual bonus, gives me vacations, everything. (Mariana, 24 years old, two jobs through Zolvers)

I don’t get paid vacations and the annual bonus in one house where I am informal, but in the other house where I am also informal, the lady, who lives abroad sends me money to pay for vacations and bonuses, it’s as if she does value me. (Sandra, 35 years old, three jobs through Zolvers)

It is worth noting that these are temporary and dynamic arrangements negotiated on a case-by-case basis. The uncertainty associated with informality also affects, in this way, other central aspects of the positions, such as schedules and tasks:

You can choose the hours, but if you choose that job that says: Thursday from 9 to 12, and you get in touch with the client and the client then tells you: you know I can’t be at home on Thursdays. Can’t you come on Fridays? No, I said, because if I chose that job, it was because it was Thursday at this time. (Sonia, 59 years old, five jobs through Zolvers)

Negotiations tend to be conflictual and can often negatively affect labor relations. According to the workers’ accounts, the digital platform has a limited impact on these dynamics. Zolvers provides, through various channels (website, social networks, notes in the application) information on registration and conditions stipulated by law, and these notices can be used as a tool to strengthen workers’ positions in these negotiations. However, this information is not always readily available to be used (sometimes it is ‘lost on the web’, as one worker puts it). Although Zolvers introduces itself in these types of jobs as a mere intermediary between two parties that is present only at the beginning of the employment relationship, the trend toward formalization generates expectations and demands among workers in terms of the quality of the jobs offered by the platform:

In the houses that I entered through Zolvers, the company isn’t chasing the employers telling them to formalize you, to pay you at the right time. Zolvers doesn’t have an ongoing relationship with the household. Once you have already entered, they tell you that you have to arrange things with your employer. But if you are running a platform, and you are charging a fee to the employer, you should take the trouble of reminding them of their obligations, it shouldn’t be me doing that. (Vanesa, 41 years old, two jobs through Zolvers)

Moreover, in both of the modalities of hiring reviewed so far, the ‘satisfaction guarantee’ offered by the digital platform is presented as a tool that hinders access to formalization. As noted, the company offers employers the possibility of requesting up to five replacements during the first sixty days if they are not satisfied with the work performed.

‘One-Time-Only’ Casual Contracts

The third type of modality of hiring offered by the digital platform is ‘one-time only’ services which fall outside the scope of regulation of the sector; regulation only applies to regular labor relations, that is, on an occupational basis. These platforms are generally positioned as intermediaries between a fluctuating demand for casual labor and ‘independent providers’ of cleaning services, thus blurring the figure of the employer and the workers’ status as employees. As a result, some platforms can require workers to register as independent providers, thus transferring the cost and risks of the activity to them (Ferreira Vale and Nociolini Rebechi, 2021; Hunt and Samman, 2019). Other platforms that offer this type of service—like Zolvers—operate informally.

Although there is no data regarding how many of the platform’s jobs use these types of contracts, the survey indicates that more than half of workers used this modality at least once a month in order to supplement income. Testimonies from interviews also point to their frequent use:

There are always offers, even if it’s just a one-time only job. There was a time when I couldn’t get a regular job, but if I could get one-time only offers, it was good for me. It’s like, if I quit the job or if my employer tells me ‘look, I really can’t keep paying you’, well, I can get a job quickly. I was able to get houses to clean right away, even if it was just once, and more or less that saved me. (Gabriela, 41 years old, five jobs through Zolvers)

The ‘one-time-only’ job allows workers to cope with periods of low income due to the loss of a job or to supplement meager salaries. Workers are aware that this type of job is carried out entirely outside the legal framework, for an hourly rate, and under conditions set by the platform. As Sonia says: ‘the one-time jobs are informal and we cannot negotiate anything’, which implies a situation of total defenselessness. This modality clearly offers the most disadvantageous conditions:

I was lucky that, whenever I worked in households, they always formalized me and thank God I have had no bad experiences. Only once when I went to a one-time only job and the lady was very bad, she didn’t even give me a glass of water, she treated me very badly. They make you go, they hire you for 4 hours and you have a lot of dirt, more than four hours of work but they want you to do all in four hours and it’s just not possible. (Irina, 35 years old, three jobs through Zolvers)

I went to a ‘one-time-only’ job, nearby. It said it was an apartment but when I got there it was a spa, and she the employer] made me clean everything. The ad said it was a four-hour job, she asked for four hours and when I went there the tasks required eight hours. And I never got paid for that one, because she paid through Zolvers Pagos and I never got paid for it . . . it was a spa, she wanted me to wash all the things, disinfect them, the couches, everything. It was cleaning the white armchairs with a cream bleach, washing everything, it was not an apartment, it was a spa, and I sent an e-mail to Zolvers to complain. (Luisa, 39 years old, two jobs through Zolvers)

These types of situations generate uncertainty for workers and can expose them to abusive situations. According to these interviewees, these may include cleaning services for non-domestic spaces (not made explicit in the job post) with higher workloads than in private homes, mistreatment, excessive task demands in relation to the time contracted, absence of basic tools to carry out the work, among others. The nature of these temporary services lessens the sense of responsibility on the employer—which is only considered as a client in this configuration—and, as Luisa’s testimony suggests, even when the platform manages the hiring and payment of the service, it does not guarantee basic working conditions. The digital platform facilitates and promotes access to one-time-only jobs, a type of work that is undeveloped within the sector in Argentina, and which is not contemplated in the sector’s legislation. This adds further restrictions to these workers’ already limited opportunities to negotiate the working conditions in which they carry out the activity.

Conclusion

Zolvers serves as a digital intermediary for the 30% of the sector that opts for hourly work, and the company introduces three different modalities of hiring that either push for more formalization in the sector or adapt (and even reinforce) prevailing precarious working conditions and informality. First, the platform offers regular jobs mediated and managed by the platform (Zolvers Pagos) which aggressively promote formalization (since, in exchange for a monthly fee the company takes care of the necessary procedures). Second, the platform also offers regular jobs mediated by the platform but managed by employers, something that—as observed above—tends to reproduce existing trends in the sector for jobs not mediated by the platform. Finally, Zolvers offers ‘one-time-only’ jobs which cannot be formalized by employers because they are taken on a casual basis, and they are not included in the domestic work legal framework. These three modalities of hiring produce different working conditions.

A primary difference in these formats is how each is situated with respect to the regulatory framework governing the sector, that is, inside or outside the law. Both forms of regular work are within the scope of application of the law; however, they represent different positions. Regular jobs managed by the platform facilitate formalized labor relations, while regular jobs managed by employers generate a range of situations often characterized by partial compliance or non-compliance with the law. Casual ‘one-time-only’ jobs, for their part, fall outside the scope of the law that regulates the sector: the law refers only to labor relationships on occupational basis. Given that the legislation establishes that those who perform cleaning and care tasks for households must do so under an employment contract, there is no avenue by which this form of work might include workers legally registered as independent workers. Consequently, the platform facilitates and, in certain way promotes, informal jobs.

A second difference between these types of hiring modalities is related to the working conditions that they generate, and in particular, how the need for face-to-face negotiation between the worker and the employer alters those conditions. When the labor relationship is managed by the platform, workers do not have to negotiate some aspects of their labor conditions because salary increases, payment for holidays, vacations and time off are guaranteed. Likewise, the platform limits the ability of the employers to modify working hours and days. The intermediary thus handles key aspects of the employment relationship, including various protections established by law something which translates into more favorable working conditions. Regular jobs without platform management, by contrast, generate the need for workers and employers to negotiate a number of conditions as employers might question the need to apply the legal framework. These negotiations are exhausting for workers because they often derive in conflict. In order to avoid such conflict, in many cases, workers accept precarious working conditions despite a lack of accordance with the law. Sometimes workers exchange informality for higher wages;¹¹ in others they simply settle for informal arrangements that imply constant changes in working hours, unpaid overtime, or unpaid holidays and vacations. Finally, ‘one-time-only’ jobs limit the capacity for workers’ negotiation all together. In this case, working conditions are very unfavorable because these jobs often imply high labor intensity; the hours of work scheduled are less than those required for the tasks to be performed. This labor arrangement exists outside any legal framework; therefore, the worker is conceived of as replaceable or disposable.

In this sense, the digital platform’s effects on formalization and working conditions are ambivalent. While it encourages formalization of paid domestic work in some of its configurations, it also intensifies the precariousness of working conditions with its offerings of ‘one-time-only’ services. On one hand, it provides a mechanism for formalization—Zolvers Pagos package—in a key segment of the sector which has proved highly resilient to formalization policies (regular jobs with few hours per week). However, on the other hand, it also proposes a mechanism that facilitates the rise of informal and casual work which, according to the workers’ testimonies, exhibits well-known forms of exploitation which can even be quite extreme. These heterogenous effects are crystallized in differentiated hiring formats that seem to target different types of households, and which permit the platform to expand its foothold in the sector.

If digital platforms are here to stay, it is important to understand their heterogenous effects on labor status and working conditions; this is particularly critical as the International Labor Organization begins to look into the ways in which instruments of international law might help to regulate digital labor intermediaries. The case of Zolvers in Argentina shows that not all work mediated by digital platforms entails the ‘uberization’ of labor: in fact, platforms can also have positive effects. However, these more positive labor formats may also co-exist with ‘uberization’ trends and other negative effects, specifically, a rise in ‘on demand’ labor and worsening working conditions. These trends require further study, particularly for a sector that has long been characterized by informality and precarity.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this article were discussed at the ILO Regulating Decent Work Conference in 2023 and at the Oñati Institute of Sociology of Law in 2024, during the Workshop on Digital Intermediaries in Domestic and Care Work. The authors thank the participants of these two events for their comments and suggestions. They are also grateful for the insights provided by the two anonymous reviewers.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación in Argentina (projects PICT 2019-01696 and PICT-2020-SERIE A-03905); by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET); by l’Agence Française de Développement; and by the International Labor Organization Country Office for Argentina. In addition, Lorena Poblete received special funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as George Forster Research Fellow 2022–2024.

ORCID iDs

Lorena Poblete

Francisca Pereyra

Ania Tizziani

Notes

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